Inter-annual and decadal changes in teleconnections drive continental-scale synchronization of tree reproduction
Climate teleconnections drive highly variable and synchronous seed production (masting) over large scales. Disentangling the effect of high-frequency (inter-annual variation) from low-frequency (decadal trends) components of climate oscillations will improve our understanding of masting as an ecosys...
Published in: | Nature Communications |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
2017
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://depositum.uqat.ca/id/eprint/1064/ https://depositum.uqat.ca/id/eprint/1064/1/ascolietal_nc_2017.pdf https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-02348-9 |
Summary: | Climate teleconnections drive highly variable and synchronous seed production (masting) over large scales. Disentangling the effect of high-frequency (inter-annual variation) from low-frequency (decadal trends) components of climate oscillations will improve our understanding of masting as an ecosystem process. Using century-long observations on masting (the MASTREE database) and data on the Northern Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), we show that in the last 60 years both high-frequency summer and spring NAO, and low-frequency winter NAO components are highly correlated to continent-wide masting in European beech and Norway spruce. Relationships are weaker (non-stationary) in the early twentieth century. This finding improves our understanding on how climate variation affects large-scale synchronization of tree masting. Moreover, it supports the connection between proximate and ultimate causes of masting: indeed, large-scale features of atmospheric circulation coherently drive cues and resources for masting, as well as its evolutionary drivers, such as pollination efficiency, abundance of seed dispersers, and natural disturbance regimes. |
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