Prior reproduction and weather affect berry crops in central Ontario, Canada

Howe, Eric J.; Obbard, Martyn E.; Bowman, Jeff

doi:10.1007/s10144-011-0301-6

Cited by 18 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…Environmental conditions can also prevent reproduction via drought, causing fruit abortion . Drought negatively affected seed production of several shrub species in Canada …”

Section: Resource Budget Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resource depletion, pollen coupling, and the ecology of mast seeding

Crone

Rapp

2014

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

130

166

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Masting, the highly variable and synchronous production of seeds across a population of perennial plants, is an ecologically important, but still poorly understood, phenomenon. While much is known about the fitness benefits of masting and its effects on seed consumers and trophic interactions, less is understood about the proximate mechanisms of masting. The resource budget model (RBM) posits that masting requires more resources than plants can gain in a single year. Individual plants store resources until a threshold is reached and then produce seeds, which depletes resources so that plants cannot reproduce again for 2 or more years. Individuals are synchronized by pollen coupling or environmental forcing. We review the assumptions of these models and assess the extent to which they are consistent with general patterns in plant populations. We discuss the implications of the RBM for how plants respond to changes in the external environment. Overall, the RBM is a likely cause of synchrony in many, but not all, masting species. This mechanistic hypothesis also leads to specific, but not always intuitive, expectations about how plant resources affect mast seeding.

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“…Environmental conditions can also prevent reproduction via drought, causing fruit abortion . Drought negatively affected seed production of several shrub species in Canada …”

Section: Resource Budget Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resource depletion, pollen coupling, and the ecology of mast seeding

Crone

Rapp

2014

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

130

166

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“…Fruit production in species such as mountain-ashes and Pin cherry is strongly influenced by fruit production in the prior year, often resulting in an alternating pattern of high and low fruit abundance in consecutive years (Howe et al 2012), again emphasizing that American Black Bears must be adaptable and forage opportunistically.…”

Section: Variation Among Yearsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal variation in food habits of the American Black Bear (<em>Ursus americanus</em>) in the boreal forest of northern Ontario

Romain¹,

Obbard²,

Atkinson³

2013

Can Field Nat

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We used scat analysis to investigate temporal variation in the food habits of American Black Bears (Ursus americanus) in the boreal forest of northern Ontario. Specifically, we examined whether there was a seasonal shift in foraging over three years (1990–1992) and which foods, if any, varied in occurrence among years. American Black Bears ate foods ranging from green vegetation in the spring to ants in mid-summer and berries and nuts in late summer and fall. Late summer berry forage, especially blueberries (Vaccinium spp.), varied greatly among years. American Black Bears in northern Ontario consumed a variety of foods opportunistically. Understanding how American Black Bears in northern Ontario exploit food resources and how these food items vary among years can provide insights into demographic processes and help wildlife managers better anticipate changes in the structure of the harvest of American Black Bears and in human–bear conflict levels. In northern Ontario, forest management practices that increase the availability of early successional species would be beneficial to American Black Bear populations.

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“…Trophic interactions remain understudied in this context despite some results indicating high relevance in certain communities. Examples of bottom‐up effects, namely weather‐induced changes in food resources, include highly synchronous fruiting (even masting) of plants causing synchronous changes in food quantity (Howe et al ., ; Koenig & Knops, ). Changes in food quality have also been shown to be produced by weather phenomena causing a lack of crucial nutrients (Scriber & Slansky, ), e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Distance decay is uncommon in large‐scale population synchrony of common moths: does it promote vulnerability to climate change?

Nieminen

2015

Insect Conserv Diversity

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1. Large-scale spatial synchrony is common in population dynamics. In nearly all empirical data sets, population synchrony decays with distance.2. Large-scale spatial population synchrony of 20 common moth species was studied using 367 separate light-trap time series of 3-27 years, at 13-19 localities in southern Finland. The maximum distance between trap sites was ca 1075 km. The degree of spatial synchrony in three weather variables (daily mean and minimum temperature, and daily total precipitation) from 15 weather stations was also studied. Data were analysed with spatial non-parametric correlation functions (Sncf).3. Statistically significant large-scale spatial synchrony in population fluctuations occurred in 85% of the species (Scotopteryx and Diarsia mendica), as well as in all weather variables.4. Spatial synchrony decreased with distance (=distance decay) in 45% of the species, and there was no indication of distance decay in the remaining species.5. Climate change is likely to cause an increasing frequency of extreme weather events, and insects are strongly affected by such environmental stochasticity. In combination with the high frequency of large-scale spatial synchrony, which did not show distance decay as a rule in these data, even currently common moth species may become threatened in the near future.

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Prior reproduction and weather affect berry crops in central Ontario, Canada

Cited by 18 publications

References 71 publications

Resource depletion, pollen coupling, and the ecology of mast seeding

Resource depletion, pollen coupling, and the ecology of mast seeding

Temporal variation in food habits of the American Black Bear (<em>Ursus americanus</em>) in the boreal forest of northern Ontario

Distance decay is uncommon in large‐scale population synchrony of common moths: does it promote vulnerability to climate change?

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