Restoring shingle vegetation - natural seed bank

There is a rapid falloff in the density of seeds from the land towards the strandline. It appears from the studies at Sizewell that the seed-bank density on shingle is very low when compared to the density on neighboring dunes. It was concluded that this natural seed bank is not sufficient to restore shingle vegetation (Walmsley & Davy 2001). However the spaces between beach pebbles provides a natural store for blown seeds or those delivered by the sea.

References

Walmsley, C.A. & Davy, A.J. 2001. Habitat creation and restoration of damaged shingle communities. In: Ecology & Geomorphology of Coastal Shingle, eds.Packham, J.R., Randall, R.E., Barnes, R.S.K. & Neal, A.Westbury Academic and Scientific Publishing, 409-420.