Many roads to success: Different combinations of life-history traits provide accurate germination timing in seasonally dry environments

Germination timing is determined by several plant life-history traits. Seed dormancy regulates the time and place of early plant development and spreads recruitment risks over time. Dispersal phenology and syndrome can influence germination timing and buffer spatial heterogeneity. The ecological requirements for germination (the germination niche) can also influence when and where germination takes place. To date, the relative importance of each of these four traits to ensure the phenological adaptation of individual species in diverse communities remains unexplored. Here, we investigated the functional interactions among them and their relevance in heterogenous, seasonally dry environments. We collected seed dispersal phenology and syndrome for 82 species of the Brazilian savanna (cerrado) and evaluated the dormancy and germination behavior of the seeds of every taxon. Based on these data, we developed two new ecological indexes to estimate the likelihood of a non-dormant seed to ger...