RT Journal Article
T1 Masting is uncommon in trees that depend on mutualist dispersers in the context of global climate and fertility gradients
A1 Qiu, Tong
A1 Aravena, Marie-Claire
A1 Ascoli, Davide
A1 Bergeron, Yves
A1 Bogdziewicz, Michal
A1 Boivin, Thomas
A1 Bonal Andrés, Raúl
A1 Caignard, Thomas
A1 Cailleret, Maxime
A1 Calama, Rafael
A1 Calderon, Sergio Donoso
A1 Camarero, J. Julio
A1 Chang-Yang, Chia-Hao
A1 Chave, Jerome
A1 Chianucci, Francesco
A1 Courbaud, Benoit
A1 Cutini, Andrea
A1 Das, Adrian J.
A1 Delpierre, Nicolas
A1 Delzon, Sylvain
A1 Dietze, Michael
A1 Dormont, Laurent
A1 Espelta, Josep Maria
A1 Fahey, Timothy J.
A1 Farfan-Rios, William
A1 Franklin, Jerry F.
A1 Gehring, Catherine A.
A1 Gilbert, Gregory S.
A1 Gratzer, Georg
A1 Greenberg, Cathryn H.
A1 Guignabert, Arthur
A1 Guo, Qinfeng
A1 Hacket-Pain, Andrew
A1 Hampe, Arndt
A1 Han, Qingmin
A1 Holik, Jan
A1 Hoshizaki, Kazuhiko
A1 Ibanez, Ines
A1 Johnstone, Jill F.
A1 Journé, Valentin
A1 Kitzberger, Thomas
A1 Knops, Johannes M. H.
A1 Kunstler, Georges
A1 Kurokawa, Hiroko
A1 Lageard, Jonathan G. A.
A1 LaMontagne, Jalene M.
A1 Lefevre, Francois
A1 Leininger, Theodor
A1 Limousin, Jean-Marc
A1 Lutz, James A.
A1 Macias, Diana
A1 Marell, Anders
A1 McIntire, Eliot J. B.
A1 Moore, Christopher M.
A1 Moran, Emily
A1 Motta, Renzo
A1 Myers, Jonathan A.
A1 Nagel, Thomas A.
A1 Naoe, Shoji
A1 Noguchi, Mahoko
A1 Oguro, Michio
A1 Parmenter, Robert
A1 Pearse, Ian S.
A1 Perez-Ramos, Ignacio M.
A1 Piechnik, Lukasz
A1 Podgorski, Tomasz
A1 Poulsen, John
A1 Redmond, Miranda D.
A1 Reid, Chantal D.
A1 Rodman, Kyle C.
A1 Rodriguez-Sanchez, Francisco
A1 Samonil, Pavel
A1 Sanguinetti, Javier D.
A1 Scher, C. Lane
A1 Seget, Barbara
A1 Sharma, Shubhi
A1 Shibata, Mitsue
A1 Silman, Miles
A1 Steele, Michael A.
A1 Stephenson, Nathan L.
A1 Straub, Jacob N.
A1 Sutton, Samantha
A1 Swenson, Jennifer J.
A1 Swift, Margaret
A1 Thomas, Peter A.
A1 Uriarte, Maria
A1 Vacchiano, Giorgio
A1 Whipple, Amy V.
A1 Whitham, Thomas G.
A1 Wion, Andreas P.
A1 Wright, S. Joseph
A1 Zhu, Kai
A1 Zimmerman, Jess K.
A1 Zywiec, Magdalena
A1 Clark, James S.
AB The benefits of masting (volatile, quasi-synchronous seed production at lagged intervals) include satiation of seed predators, but these benefits come with a cost to mutualist pollen and seed dispersers. If the evolution of masting represents a balance between these benefits and costs, we expect mast avoidance in species that are heavily reliant on mutualist dispersers. These effects play out in the context of variable climate and site fertility among species that vary widely in nutrient demand. Meta-analyses of published data have focused on variation at the population scale, thus omitting periodicity within trees and synchronicity between trees. From raw data on 12 million tree-years worldwide, we quantified three components of masting that have not previously been analysed together: (i) volatility, defined as the frequency-weighted year-to-year variation; (ii) periodicity, representing the lag between high-seed years; and (iii) synchronicity, indicating the tree-to-tree correlation. Results show that mast avoidance (low volatility and low synchronicity) by species dependent on mutualist dispersers explains more variation than any other effect. Nutrient-demanding species have low volatility, and species that are most common on nutrient-rich and warm/wet sites exhibit short periods. The prevalence of masting in cold/dry sites coincides with climatic conditions where dependence on vertebrate dispersers is less common than in the wet tropics. Mutualist dispersers neutralize the benefits of masting for predator satiation, further balancing the effects of climate, site fertility and nutrient demands.
PB Springer
YR 2023
FD 2023-06-29
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/123479
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/123479
LA eng
NO Qiu, T., Aravena, M. C., Ascoli, D., et al. (2023). Masting is uncommon in trees that depend on mutualist dispersers in the context of global climate and fertility gradients. Nature Plants, 9(7), 1044–1056. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-023-01446-5.
NO For access to sites and logistical support, we thank the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). The project has been funded continuously since 1992 by National Science Foundation grants to J.S.C., most recently DEB-1754443, and by the Belmont Forum (1854976), NASA (AIST16-0052, AIST18-0063) and the Programme d’Investissement d’Avenir under project FORBIC (18-MPGA-0004)(‘Make Our Planet Great Again’). T.Q. acknowledges support from the start-up funds provided by Pennsylvania State University. Puerto Rico data were funded by NSF grants to M.U., most recently DEB 0963447 and LTREB 11222325. Data from the Andes Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group were funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and NSF LTREB 1754647 to M.S. Additional funding to M.Z. came from the W. Szafer Institute of Botany of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish National Science Foundation (2019/33/B/NZ8/0134). M.B. was supported by Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange Bekker programme PPN/BEK/2020/1/00009/U/00001. F.R.S. was supported by FEDER 2014–2020 and Consejeria de Economia, Conocimiento, Empresas y Universidad of Junta de Andalucia (grant US-1381388). J.F.F.’s data remain accessible through NSF LTER DEB-1440409. USDA Forest Service and USGS research were funded by those agencies. Any use of trade, firm or product names does not imply endorsement by the US Government
NO National Science Foundation (Estados Unidos)
NO Belmont Forum
NO NASA
NO Programme d’Investissement d’Avenir (Francia)
NO Pennsylvania State University (Estados Unidos)
NO Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (Estados Unidos)
NO W. Szafer Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences
NO Polish National Science Foundation / National Science Centre (NCN)
NO Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (Polonia)
NO Unión Europea
NO Junta de Andalucía (España)
NO USDA Forest Service (Estados Unidos)
NO USGS (United States Geological Survey)
DS Docta Complutense
RD 25 feb 2026