Considering its potential use in degraded environments, this study characterized the composition of a seed bank obtained from an area of typical secondary succession on the Federal University of Viçosa campus. Inferences were made whether this indicator reflects future sustainability, given the seed bank's potential for revegetating degraded sites. Its floristic composition was compared with indices obtained in other similar seed bank studies. The specific site is located at the Mata da Garagem woods, a 40-year old forest fragment covering a low ridge parallel to a campus roadway. Twenty seed bank samples were collected from randomly selected points, each sample consisting of four subsamples. The experiment was installed on the campus nursery using 20 wooden boxes (50x50x15cm). After 90 days, 508 individual plants were counted, and 38 species were identified, as belonging to 34 genera distributed among 22 families. The diversity index (H') is 2.11; whereas the equability (J) value of 0.67 is considered high compared to other seed bank studies. Cecropia hololeuca (28.9%) and Solanum erianthum (18,7%) are indicated as the most important species within the forest regeneration process. Results suggest that the seed bank studied indeed has the potential for promoting and guaranteeing an ecological succession process dynamics on degraded lands of similar ecosystems.
Seed bank; forest litter; environmental recovery
