Nutrient scarcity as a selective pressure for mast seeding

Fernández‐Martínez, Marcos; Pearse, Ian S.; Sardans, Jordi; Sayol, Ferran; Koenig, Walter D.; LaMontagne, Jalene M.; Bogdziewicz, Michał; Collalti, Alessio; Hacket‐Pain, Andrew; Vacchiano, Giorgio; Espelta, Josep María; Peñuelas, Josep; Janssens, Ivan A.

doi:10.1038/s41477-019-0549-y

Cited by 58 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Masting, or mast seeding, the highly variable and synchronised seed production by plant populations (Kelly 1994;Crone & Rapp 2014), is a widespread reproductive strategy in perennial plants (Kelly & Sork 2002;Tanentzap & Monks 2018;Fern andez-Mart ınez et al 2019). The resulting resource pulses have cascading effects on plant and animal population dynamics, macronutrient cycling and disease risk in humans (Ostfeld & Keesing 2000;Bogdziewicz et al 2016;Vacchiano et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From theory to experiments for testing the proximate mechanisms of mast seeding: an agenda for an experimental ecology

et al. 2019

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Highly variable and synchronised production of seeds by plant populations, known as masting, is implicated in many important ecological processes, but how it arises remains poorly understood. The lack of experimental studies prevents underlying mechanisms from being explicitly tested, and thereby precludes meaningful predictions on the consequences of changing environments for plant reproductive patterns and global vegetation dynamics. Here we review the most relevant proximate drivers of masting and outline a research agenda that takes the biology of masting from a largely observational field of ecology to one rooted in mechanistic understanding. We divide the experimental framework into three main processes: resource dynamics, pollen limitation and genetic and hormonal regulation, and illustrate how specific predictions about proximate mechanisms can be tested, highlighting the few successful experiments as examples. We envision that the experiments we outline will deliver new insights into how and why masting patterns might respond to a changing environment.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From theory to experiments for testing the proximate mechanisms of mast seeding: an agenda for an experimental ecology

et al. 2019

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“…Plants likely allocate nutrients to leaves first to ensure and secure their growth [ 41 ]. Leaf nutrient concentrations play a basic role in the plant ecophysiology and ecosystem functioning [ 42 ]. Plant growth is the main process controlling C input in the terrestrial ecosystems, which requires partially 16 elements in different amounts [ 43 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The P is crucial for plant growth and to maintain WUE, particularly in arid environments [ 46 ]. Moreover, the photosynthetic rates are associated to leaf nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations [ 42 ] and with carbon, they are considered as the premise of ecological stoichiometry [ 47 ] and basic elements of elementome and biogeochemical niche [ 45 ]. It is helpful to evaluate the ecological traits from the elemental formation of living beings [ 42 , 48 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Convergent Variations in the Leaf Traits of Desert Plants

Akram

Wang

et al. 2020

Plants

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Convergence is commonly caused by environmental filtering, severe climatic conditions and local disturbance. The basic aim of the present study was to understand the pattern of leaf traits across diverse desert plant species in a common garden, in addition to determining the effect of plant life forms (PLF), such as herb, shrub and subshrub, phylogeny and soil properties on leaf traits. Six leaf traits, namely carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), δ13C and leaf water potential (LWP) of 37 dominant desert plant species were investigated and analyzed. The C, N, K and δ13C concentrations in leaves of shrubs were found higher than herbs and subshrubs; however, P and LWP levels were higher in the leaves of subshrubs following herbs and shrubs. Moreover, leaf C showed a significant positive correlation with N and a negative correlation with δ13C. Leaf N exhibited a positive correlation with P. The relationship between soil and plant macro-elements was found generally insignificant but soil C and N exhibited a significant positive correlation with leaf P. Taxonomy showed a stronger effect on leaf C, N, P and δ13C than soil properties, explaining >50% of the total variability. C3 plants showed higher leaf C, N, P, K and LWP concentration than C4 plants, whereas C4 plants had higher δ13C than C3 plants. Legumes exhibited higher leaf C, N, K and LWP than nonlegumes, while nonlegumes had higher P and δ13C concentration than legumes. In all the species, significant phylogenetic signals (PS) were detected for C and N and nonsignificant PS for the rest of the leaf traits. In addition, these phylogenetic signals were found lower (K-value < 1), and the maximum K-value was noted for C (K = 0.35). The plants of common garden evolved and adapted themselves for their survival in the arid environment and showed convergent variations in their leaf traits. However, these variations were not phylogenetics-specific. Furthermore, marks of convergence found in leaf traits of the study area were most likely due to the environmental factors.

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“…Three main features have traditionally been used to describe masting: (a) temporal variability of reproductive events (at different levels of organization, e.g., population, individual) most commonly measured using the coefficient of variation (CV = standard deviation · mean −1 ) (Kelly & Sork, 2002), (b) synchrony, often calculated among individuals within a population as the average Pearson's or Spearman's correlation coefficient among all pairwise comparisons (Koenig & Knops, 2013), and (c) temporal autocorrelation, measured with autocorrelation coefficients, as an indication of potential resource depletion (correlation of each value with the previous, lag 1) (Fernández‐Martínez et al., 2019; Pearse et al., 2016) or internal cycles of reproduction or resource mobilization (lags > 1) (Fernández‐Martínez et al., 2012; Sork et al., 1993). The intrinsic link between the temporal variability of reproductive efforts of a population and the average synchrony in reproduction in a population (Buonaccorsi et al., 2003; Herrera, 1998), however, is often overlooked (Figure 1).…”

Section: Measuring Temporal Reproductive Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(2011) had already warned the masting community about the potential of CV to be a poor metric for measuring the temporal variability of reproductive efforts and that interpreting CV should be considered in context. To date, only a few studies analyzed their data sets using D or PV (Bogdziewicz, Fernández‐Martínez, et al., 2020; Fernández‐Martínez et al., 2017, 2019; Koenig et al., 2020; Pesendorfer et al., 2020; Vergotti et al., 2019) after our first warning about the problems linked to using CV for masting was published (Fernández‐Martínez et al., 2018). Ascari et al.…”

Section: Temporal Variability: Why We Need Alternative Measures To CVmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring temporal patterns in ecology: The case of mast seeding

Fernández‐Martínez

Peñuelas

2021

Ecology and Evolution

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How to accurately describe temporal patterns in ecological processes has been a long-standing question in ecology (McCann, 2000).Metrics to estimate stability, temporal variability, and resilience are, actually, still under intense debate (Arnoldi et al., 2016). The field of masting, for which assessing temporal patterns of seed production is crucial, is not an exception. Mast seeding, or masting, has traditionally been described as a reproductive phenomenon consisting of the highly variable and synchronized production of seeds at the population scale (Kelly, 1994;Pearse et al., 2016;Silvertown, 1980). The use of the term "masting," or describing a species or population as following a masting behavior, however, is sometimes confusing, arbitrary, or insufficiently accurate in the scientific literature to be

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Nutrient scarcity as a selective pressure for mast seeding

Cited by 58 publications

References 70 publications

From theory to experiments for testing the proximate mechanisms of mast seeding: an agenda for an experimental ecology

From theory to experiments for testing the proximate mechanisms of mast seeding: an agenda for an experimental ecology

Convergent Variations in the Leaf Traits of Desert Plants

Measuring temporal patterns in ecology: The case of mast seeding

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