Is there tree senescence? The fecundity evidence

Qiu, Tong; Acuña, Marie‐Claire Aravena; Andrus, Robert A.; Ascoli, Davide; Bergeron, Yves; Berretti, Roberta; Bogdziewicz, Michał; Boivin, Thomas; Bonal, Raúl; Caignard, Thomas; Calama, Rafael; Camarero, J. Julio; Clark, Connie J.; Courbaud, Benoı̂t; Delzon, Sylvain; Calderón, Sergio Donoso; Farfán-Ríos, William; Gehring, Catherine A.; Gilbert, Gregory S.; Greenberg, Cathryn H.; Guo, Qinfeng; Lambers, Janneke Hille Ris; Hoshizaki, Kazuhiko; Ibáñez, Inés; Journé, Valentin; Kilner, Christopher L; Kobe, Richard K.; Koenig, Walter D.; Künstler, Georges; LaMontagne, Jalene M.; Ledwoń, Mateusz; Lutz, James A.; Motta, Renzo; Myers, Jonathan A.; Nagel, Thomas A.; Núñez, Chase L.; Pearse, Ian S.; Piechnik, Łukasz; Poulsen, John R.; Poulton-Kamakura, Renata; Redmond, Miranda D.; Reid, Chantal D.; Rodman, Kyle C.; Scher, C. Lane; Marle, Harald Schmidt Van; Seget, Barbara; Sharma, Shubhi; Silman, Miles R.; Swenson, Jennifer J.; Swift, Margaret; Uriarte, María; Vacchiano, Giorgio; Veblen, Thomas T.; Whipple, Amy V.; Whitham, Thomas G.; Wion, Andreas P.; Wright, S. Joseph; Zhu, Kai; Zimmerman, Jess K.; Żywiec, Magdalena; Clark, James S.

doi:10.1073/pnas.2106130118

Cited by 53 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 115 publications

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“…Much of our current understanding of forest dynamics neglects the role of seed production (McDowell et al ., 2020). However, as the climate changes, the relationships between three dimensions of forest demography (growth, survival, and seed production) are going to change (McDowell et al ., 2020; Clark et al ., 2021; Qiu et al ., 2021). This requires understanding masting and its responses to changing climate, particularly because unpredictability of tree recruitment has emerged as a key obstacle to understanding forest resilience.…”

Section: Open Questions and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How will global change affect plant reproduction? A framework for mast seeding trends

Bogdziewicz

2021

New Phytologist

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Summary Forest ecology traditionally focuses on plant growth and survival, leaving seed production as a major demographic process lacking a framework for how it will be affected by global change. Understanding plant reproductive responses to changing climate is complicated by masting, the annually variable seed production synchronized within populations. Predicting trends in masting is crucial, because masting impacts seed predation and pollination enough to override simple trends in mean seed production. Proximate mechanisms of seed production patterns in perennial plants are gathered to identify processes through which masting may be affected by a changing environment. Predicting trends in masting will require understanding the mechanisms that cause predictable seed failure after high‐seed years, and the stochastic mechanisms that synchronize individuals in high‐seed years.

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Section: Open Questions and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How will global change affect plant reproduction? A framework for mast seeding trends

Bogdziewicz

2021

New Phytologist

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“…Progress has been made in understanding the ontogenetic development of fecundity [61,62], but the effect of tree age and size on masting behaviour has often been neglected. Comparisons among age or size groups have provided important initial insights.…”

Section: (B) Ontogenymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While certain stressors drive trees to temporarily increase reproduction, there is no evidence that impending natural death is associated with bumper crops. In fact, seed production appears to stagnate or decline before death [61,72,73]. Interestingly, evidence is accumulating that longlived trees experience 'negative senescence' during which mortality rates decline with age after surpassing a threshold [74].…”

Section: (B) Ontogenymentioning

confidence: 99%

The ecology and evolution of synchronized reproduction in long-lived plants

Pesendorfer

Ascoli

Bogdziewicz

et al. 2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Populations of many long-lived plants exhibit spatially synchronized seed production that varies extensively over time, so that seed production in some years is much higher than on average, while in others, it is much lower or absent. This phenomenon termed masting or mast seeding has important consequences for plant reproductive success, ecosystem dynamics and plant–human interactions. Inspired by recent advances in the field, this special issue presents a series of articles that advance the current understanding of the ecology and evolution of masting. To provide a broad overview, we reflect on the state-of-the-art of masting research in terms of underlying proximate mechanisms, ontogeny, adaptations, phylogeny and applications to conservation. While the mechanistic drivers and fitness consequences of masting have received most attention, the evolutionary history, ontogenetic trajectory and applications to plant–human interactions are poorly understood. With increased availability of long-term datasets across broader geographical and taxonomic scales, as well as advances in molecular approaches, we expect that many mysteries of masting will be solved soon. The increased understanding of this global phenomenon will provide the foundation for predictive modelling of seed crops, which will improve our ability to manage forests and agricultural fruit and nut crops in the Anthropocene. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The ecology and evolution of synchronized seed production in plants’.

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“…Individual fecundity could vary due to climate through alternative allocation priorities (Figure 1a). Because reproductive effort depends on both seed sizes and numbers (Westoby et al, 1992), and reproductive effort varies with tree size (Qiu et al, 2021), individual standardised production (ISP) is defined here relative to tree basal area,

I S P_{italicij} = \frac{{\overset{f}{true}}_{italicijs} \times g_{s}}{basal {area}_{i}},

(

g {normalm}^{‐ 2} {year}^{‐ 1}

). ISP depends on the mass of a seed

g_{s}

produced by species

s

and the estimate of mean seed production

{\hat{f}}_{ijs}

for tree

i

at location

j

that accounts for the effects of shading by neighbours, and the variation and uncertainty in seed production each year,

f_{i j s, t}

(see Methods: Uncertainty in ISP and CSP, Equation ()).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Globally, tree fecundity exceeds productivity gradients

et al. 2022

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Lack of tree fecundity data across climatic gradients precludes the analysis of how seed supply contributes to global variation in forest regeneration and biotic interactions responsible for biodiversity. A global synthesis of raw seedproduction data shows a 250‐fold increase in seed abundance from cold‐dry to warm‐wet climates, driven primarily by a 100‐fold increase in seed production for a given tree size. The modest (threefold) increase in forest productivity across the same climate gradient cannot explain the magnitudes of these trends. The increase in seeds per tree can arise from adaptive evolution driven by intense species interactions or from the direct effects of a warm, moist climate on tree fecundity. Either way, the massive differences in seed supply ramify through food webs potentially explaining a disproportionate role for species interactions in the wet tropics.

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Is there tree senescence? The fecundity evidence

Cited by 53 publications

References 115 publications

How will global change affect plant reproduction? A framework for mast seeding trends

How will global change affect plant reproduction? A framework for mast seeding trends

The ecology and evolution of synchronized reproduction in long-lived plants

Globally, tree fecundity exceeds productivity gradients

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