ABSTRACT - The knowledge of soil seeds bank provides essential information on the potential of regeneration in a particular areas, allowing inferences on its restoration. By using 20 plots with 25 x 25 cm and 5 cm deep, samples of soils from different environmental situations, identified in a rural property in Carandaí, MG, were collected (clean pasture, dirty pasture, coppice, eucalyptus and forest). The collected material was put to be germinated in a greenhouse and analyzed for eight months, where composition and the density of the species (herbaceous, sub-shrubby, shrubby and arboreal) were evaluated. The environmental situations presented different expressions of natural regeneration. The dirty pasture was the situation that presented the largest number of regenerating herbaceous trees, what makes it more problematic for forest restoration. All the environmental situations presented bank of seeds of arboreal and shrubby seedlings, which may help the restoration process. However, the success of this activity will be directly linked to the activities of competitor control, mainly of Urochloa decumbens (Stapf) R. D. Webster, an aggressive grass that germinates in every environmental situation. Due to the absence of species in final succession stage in the seed bank in the soil, there might have been other complementary interventions such as planting of seedlings, direct sowing of tree species and/or implantation of artificial galleries to accelerate the vegetable succession.
Ecological restoration; Natural regeneration; Seed ecology
