Effect of age on germination of dormant seeds

Dormant seeds in permanent soil seed banks change their germination probability with age, but little is known about the causes of this behavior. Since current adaptive models do not consider the age structure of the seed bank, the sole explanation is that changes in germination probability with age are due to passive accidental factors or to decay of seeds. Here we present a theory, which shows that such changes might be adaptive. In particular, in density-regulated populations, the evolutionarily stable fraction of germinating seeds in each age class increases with age whenever age-dependent mortality of dormant seeds remains constant or increases with age.