RT Journal Article
T1 Flowering synchrony drives reproductive success in a wind‐pollinated tree
A1 Bogdziewicz, Michał
A1 Pesendorfer, Mario
A1 Crone, Elizabeth E.
A1 Pérez Izquierdo, Carlos
A1 Bonal Andrés, Raúl
AB Synchronised and quasi-periodic production of seeds by plant populations, known as masting, is implicated in many ecological processes, but how it arises remains poorly understood. Flowering and pollination dynamics are hypothesised to provide the mechanistic link for the observed relationship between weather and population-level seed production. We report the first experimental test of the phenological synchrony hypotheses as a driver of pollen limitation in mast seeding oaks (Quercus ilex). Higher flowering synchrony yielded greater pollination efficiency, which resulted in 2-fold greater seed set in highly synchronised oaks compared to asynchronous individuals. Pollen addition removed the negative effect of asynchronous flowering on seed set. Because phenological synchrony operates through environmental variation, this result suggests that oak masting is synchronised by exogenous rather than endogenous factors. It also points to a mechanism by which changes in flowering phenology can affect plant reproduction of mast-seeding plants, with subsequent implications for community dynamics.
PB Ecology Letters
SN 1461-023X
YR 2020
FD 2020-11-11
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/133137
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/133137
LA eng
NO Bogdziewicz, M., Pesendorfer, M., Crone, E. E., Pérez-Izquierdo, C., & Bonal, R. (2020). Flowering synchrony drives reproductive success in a wind-pollinated tree. En Ecology Letters (Vol. 23, Número 12, pp. 1820-1826). Blackwell Publishing Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1111/ELE.13609
NO The study was supported by the Polish National Science Centre grants Sonatina no. 2017/24/C/NZ8/00151 (MB), and the MICNN project AGL2014-54739-R (RB).
NO Polish National Science Centre
NO Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España)
NO European Commission
DS Docta Complutense
RD 19 may 2026