Reproductive maturity in boreal trees, Northwest Territories, Canada ...

• Main Authors: Alfaro Sánchez, Raquel, Johnstone, Jill F, Cumming, Steve G, Day, Nicola, Mack, Michelle C, Walker, Xanthe J, Baltzer, Jennifer L
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2022
• Subjects: black spruce; jack pine; serotiny; boreal forest; post-fire regeneration; Reproductive size threshold; Reproductive age threshold; FOS: Biological sciences; Alfaro; Canada; Northwest Territories
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.00000005x; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.00000005x

In boreal North America, much of the landscape is covered by fire-adapted forests dominated by serotinous conifers. For these forests, reductions in fire return interval could limit reproductive success, owing to insufficient time for stands to reach reproductive maturity i.e., to initiate cone production. Improved understanding of the drivers of reproductive maturity can provide important information about the capacity of these forests to self-replace following fire. Here, we assessed the drivers of reproductive maturity in two dominant and widespread conifers, semi-serotinous black spruce and serotinous jack pine. Presence or absence of female cones were recorded in approximately 15,000 individuals within old and recently burned stands in two distinct ecozones of the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada. Our results show that reproductive maturity was triggered by a minimum tree size threshold rather than an age threshold, with trees reaching reproductive maturity at smaller sizes where environmental ... : Methodology is available in : Alfaro-Sánchez R, Johnstone JF, Cumming SG, Day N, Mack MC, Walker XJ and Baltzer JL (2022) What Drives Reproductive Maturity and Efficiency in Serotinous Boreal Conifers? Front. Ecol. Evol. 10:869130. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2022.869130 ...