 Spring is just about to get started and with it all kinds of new plant life. Once the soil temperatures have warmed up seeds in the soil will germinate and end their dormancy. Seed dormancy is a mechanism to prevent germination during unsuitable ecological conditions. One important function of this is to allow time for seed dispersal and to make sure that all seeds do not germinate at the same time. This helps ensure that some seeds will germinate into seedlings and survive as new plants. Many species of plants have seeds that can remain dormant for several months or even years and some seeds have remained viable in dormancy for decades. Seed dormancy can be broken by a number of factors such as high temperatures, fire, freezing, thawing and even by passing through the digestive tract of an animal. Once dormancy has been broken, it usually cannot be reversed, so the timing is important and tied to environmental cues such as soil temperature and moisture. From the University of Wyoming Extension, I'm Barton Stam, Exploring the Nature of Wyoming.