Résumé
In plant ecology, characterising colonisation and extinction in plant metapopulations is challeng- ing due to the non-detectable seed bank that allows plants to emerge after several years of absence. In this study, we used a Hidden Markov Model to characterise seed dormancy, colonisa- tion and germination solely from the presence – absence of standing flora. Applying the model to data from a long-term survey of 38 annual weeds across France, we identified three homogeneous functional groups: (1) species persisting preferentially through spatial colonisation, (2) species per- sisting preferentially through seed dormancy and (3) a mix of both strategies. These groups are consistent with existing ecological knowledge, demonstrating that ecologically meaningful parame- ters can be estimated from simple presence – absence observations. These results indicate that such studies could contribute to the design of weed management strategies. They also open the possibil- ity of testing life-history theories such as the dormancy/colonisation trade-off in natura .