Seed longevity
To determinate seed longevity, 13 seed batches (each batch contains enough seeds for three Petri dishes) from each species were stored under ambient conditions (Fig. 3a).
Each seed batch was stored in a paper bag within a glass bottle, covered with aluminium foil and labelled for chronological germination over each of 13 consecutive months.
The germination protocol in this experiment followed the approach described above, and three replicates were used per species per month.