Variation and synchrony of tree species mast seeding in an old‐growth temperate forest

Wang, Yunyun; Zhang, Jian; LaMontagne, Jalene M.; Lin, Fei; Li, Buhang; Ye, Ji; Yuan, Zuoqiang; Wang, Xugao; Hao, Zhanqing

doi:10.1111/jvs.12494

Cited by 19 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 65 publications

(196 reference statements)

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“…phenological synchrony and spring drought, with the latter having a stronger effect. Across different oak species, seed production correlates with either rain or temperature in spring [5,9,[52][53][54][55]. Based on the patterns we observed, we hypothesize that both phenological synchrony and acorn abortion owing to water-shortage occur in oaks, but depending on the local conditions one of them has a stronger effect on seeding dynamics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

The Moran effect and environmental vetoes: phenological synchrony and drought drive seed production in a Mediterranean oak

et al. 2017

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Masting is the highly variable production of synchronized seed crops, and is a common reproductive strategy in plants. Weather has long been recognized as centrally involved in driving seed production in masting plants. However, the theory behind mechanisms connecting weather and seeding variation has only recently been developed, and still lacks empirical evaluation. We used 12-year long seed production data for 255 holm oaks (), as well as airborne pollen and meteorological data, and tested whether masting is driven by environmental constraints: phenological synchrony and associated pollination efficiency, and drought-related acorn abscission. We found that warm springs resulted in short pollen seasons, and length of the pollen seasons was negatively related to acorn production, supporting the phenological synchrony hypothesis. Furthermore, the relationship between phenological synchrony and acorn production was modulated by spring drought, and effects of environmental vetoes on seed production were dependent on last year's environmental constraint, implying passive resource storage. Both vetoes affected among-tree synchrony in seed production. Finally, precipitation preceding acorn maturation was positively related to seed production, mitigating apparent resource depletion following high crop production in the previous year. These results provide new insights into mechanisms beyond widely reported weather and seed production correlations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

The Moran effect and environmental vetoes: phenological synchrony and drought drive seed production in a Mediterranean oak

et al. 2017

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“…All free-standing individuals in the plot at least 1 cm in diamete r at breast height (dbh; 1.3 m above ground) were tagged, measure d and identified to the species level, and their geographic coordin ates were recorded. Seed were collected twice a month from May to December and once per month from January to April between 2006 and 2014 (Wang et al, 2016). In this study, each individual in each census was assigned to one of five size classes (Tables 1 and S1).…”

Section: Study Site and Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Each station consisted of one 0.5 m 2 seed trap an d three 1 m 2 seedling plots placed 2 m away from three sides (west, north, and east) of the trap. Seed were collected twice a month from May to December and once per month from January to April between 2006 and 2014 (Wang et al, 2016). All seedlings…”

Section: Study Site and Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conspecific density dependence and community structure: Insights from 11 years of monitoring in an old‐growth temperate forest in Northeast China

Kuang

Zhu

Yuan

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

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Forest community structure may be influenced by seedling density dependence, however, the effect is loosely coupled with population dynamics and diversity in the short term. In the long term the strength of conspecific density dependence may fluctuate over time because of seedling abundance, yet few long‐term studies exist. Based on 11 years of seedling census data and tree census data from a 25‐ha temperate forest plot in Northeast China, we used generalized linear mixed models to test the relative effects of local neighborhood density and abiotic factors on seedling density and seedling survival. Spatial point pattern analysis was used to determine if spatial patterns of saplings and juveniles, in relation to conspecific adults, were in accordance with patterns uncovered by conspecific negative density dependence at the seedling stage. Our long‐term results showed that seedling density was mainly positively affected by conspecific density, suggesting dispersal limitation of seedling development. The probability of seedling survival significantly decreased over 1 year with increasing conspecific density, indicating conspecific negative density dependence in seedling establishment. Although there was variation in conspecific negative density dependence at the seedling stage among species and across years, a dispersed pattern of conspecific saplings relative to conspecific adults at the local scale (<10 m) was observed in four of the 11 species examined. Overall, sapling spatial patterns were consistent with the impacts of conspecific density on seedling dynamics, which suggests that conspecific negative density dependence is persistent over the long term. From the long‐term perspective, conspecific density dependence is an important driver of species coexistence in temperate forests.

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“…, Wang et al. ). This variability ramifies throughout food‐webs, starting with seed predators and frugivores that forage at scales from a few meters to landscapes and ranging in diet from specialist to generalist (Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Seed-shadow models (SSMs) are widely used to quantify masting, with data that passively monitor fecundity and dispersal simultaneously for all tree and shrub species that can be recovered and identified in seed traps (Clark et al 1998, Uriarte et al 2005, Jones and Muller-Landau 2008, Detto et al 2018. Despite the diverse applications, current models omit key features of most data sets, and they do not estimate the spatiotemporal dependence, which is often quasi-periodic and synchronous across host individuals (Crone and Rapp 2014, Wang et al 2017). This variability ramifies throughout food-webs, starting with seed predators and frugivores that forage at scales from a few meters to landscapes and ranging in diet from specialist to Manuscript received 8 May 2018;revised 5 February 2019; accepted 14 February 2019.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foodwebs based on unreliable foundations: spatiotemporal masting merged with consumer movement, storage, and diet

Clark

Núñez

Tomasek

2019

Ecological Monographs

114

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Mast‐fruiting trees represent a pulsed resource that both supports and destabilizes consumer populations. Whereas a reliable resource is abundant on average and with limited variation in time and space, masting is volatile and localized, and that variability ramifies throughout food‐webs. Theory is developed to evaluate how the space–time structure of masting interacts with consumers who exploit alternative hosts, forage widely in space, and store reserves in time. We derive the space–time–species covariance in resource supply and combine it with the space–time–diet breadth of consumers, or ambit. Direct connection to data is made possible with Mast Inference and Forecasting (MASTIF), a state‐space autoregressive model that fits seed‐trap and canopy observations and predicts resource availability within the canopy and on the forest floor with full uncertainty. A resource score can be assigned to each consumer–habitat combination that integrates the benefits of a high mean supply weighed against the variance cost. As the consumer ambit increases, the volatility of an unreliable resource shifts from a variance cost to a mean benefit. Consumers foraging in the canopy (arboreal arthropods and rodents, song birds) experience space‐time covariance between host trees. Consumers on the forest floor (seed and damping‐off fungi, arthropods, rodents, ground‐nesting birds, mammals) experience instead a redistribution of that covariance by dispersal. For consumers lacking mobility, demographic storage in the form of episodic birth cohorts following mast years is important for population persistence. Consumers additionally compensate volatility with diet breadth. Depending on the dominant masting strategies of host tree species in the diet, habitats differentially limit consumers depending on the misalignment between consumer ambit and spatiotemporal covariance of hosts. The impact of adding or subtracting a diet item can be gauged with the standard error (SE) rule or the benefit of an added diet item balanced against the variance cost, both of which depend on the existing diet, the abundance of the new host, and the consumer's foraging ambit. Results rank habitats by their capacities to support wildlife and other consumers from a resource perspective. Results are connected directly to data, with full uncertainty, by MASTIF.

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Variation and synchrony of tree species mast seeding in an old‐growth temperate forest

Cited by 19 publications

References 65 publications

The Moran effect and environmental vetoes: phenological synchrony and drought drive seed production in a Mediterranean oak

The Moran effect and environmental vetoes: phenological synchrony and drought drive seed production in a Mediterranean oak

Conspecific density dependence and community structure: Insights from 11 years of monitoring in an old‐growth temperate forest in Northeast China

Foodwebs based on unreliable foundations: spatiotemporal masting merged with consumer movement, storage, and diet

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