ecological engineering 35 ( 2 0 0 9 ) 829–835 available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoleng A rapid assessment approach on soil seed banks of Atlantic forest sites with different disturbance history in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil André Lindner Department of Systematic Botany, University of Leipzig, Institute for Biology I, Johannisallee 21, 04103 Leipzig, Germany article info Article history: Received 20 July 2008 Received in revised form 2 December 2008 Accepted 7 December 2008 Keywords: Soil seed bank Forest disturbance Fragmentation Edge effect Atlantic rainforest abstract This study represents a rapid assessment approach on the composition of soil seed banks in the Atlantic rainforest in Brazil and therefore marks a tool for the fast estimation of one important aspect of the regeneration ability of forest sites with different disturbance histories. The project was carried out in a private reserve in the state of Rio de Janeiro, where research plots were established in three different forest sites: in continuous forest where selective logging took place, in forest regrowth after complete cutdown about 60 years ago and in a forest fragment. Additionally data from another forest remnant in this region were added to compare especially the results concerning the influence of fragmentation processes on soil seed bank structure. With remarkably less sampling effort compared to germination experiments the siev- ing method is resulting in a fast gain of information on this particular topic which still is comparable to already published results. Every investigation site in our study differs considerably in soil seed bank composition concerning their disturbance history. Furthermore coherences between canopy structure and the density of small-sized seeds in the soil, as well as edge effects within the forest fragments were observed. We recognised a higher amount of small seeds under more open canopy conditions in general and discovered trends of higher species richness near the forest boundary in the forest fragments. This rapid assessment approach might be an easy to handle tool and a practical alter- native to more extensive germination experiments for upcoming investigations on the regeneration capability in highly fragmented and disturbed landscapes like the Atlantic rainforest. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Soil seed banks are the last natural regeneration source in isolated and highly fragmented areas. Today about 7% of the Atlantic forests original extent still remains (Morellato and Haddad, 2000; Galindo-Leal and de Gusmão Câmara, 2003; E-mail address: alindner@uni-leipzig.de. Tabarelli et al., 2005; INPE/Mata Atlântica, 2008). It is often restricted to steep hill slopes or heavily fragmented forest areas of varying size and intensity of isolation (Ranta et al., 1998; Oliveira-Filho and Fontes, 2000). Over 99% of the 100,000 forest fragments in Rio de Janeiro State are smaller than 500 ha (Tabarelli and Peres, 2002). There are multiple causes 0925-8574/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2008.12.006