Masting in a temperate tree: Evidence for environmental prediction?

作者：Burns K C^*

来源：Austral Ecology, 2012, 37(2): 175-182.

DOI：10.1111/j.1442-9993.2011.02260.x

• Dysoxylum spectabile
• fruit
• New Zealand
• plant reproduction
• precipitation

Many plant species produce large fruit crops in some years and then produce few or no fruits in others. Synchronous, inter-annual variation in plant reproduction is known as masting and its adaptive significance has yet to be fully resolved. For 8 consecutive years, I quantified every fruit produced by 22 females of a New Zealand tree species (Dysoxylum spectabile), which has an unusual habit of taking a full calendar year to mature fruits after flowering. Fruit production varied strongly among years and was tightly synchronized among trees. Annual variability in fruit production declined with total reproductive output, indicating trees with lower fecundity exhibited a stronger tendency to mast. Although unrelated to temperature, annual fruit production was positively related to precipitation during annual periods of fruit development, and negatively related to fruit production in the previous year. Seedlings had higher rates of survivorship in a wet, high-seed year than in a dry, low-seed year, suggesting that seedlings might be drought sensitive. Therefore, D. spectabile produced large fruit crops during periods of high rainfall prior to fruit maturation, which may enhance survivorship of drought-intolerant seeds. Results were inconsistent with several hypotheses that are widely believed to be the most likely explanations for masting. Instead, results were consistent with the environmental prediction hypothesis, suggesting that this hypothesis may be more important than previously appreciated.

• 出版日期2012-4