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q-bio.PE · Populations and Evolutionstat.AP · Applications

In 876 MASTREE+ v2 seed, fruit and cone series, interannual variability did not change from the early to the late half of 1980–2022, and local summer warming did not predict a decrease

Question: Studies of European beech report that the year-to-year variability of seed production (CVp) decreased in recent decades, most where summers warmed most. Is this a general pattern in the open multi-species database MASTREE+ v2 (2024 release)? Approach: For each series with 16 or more observed years in 1980-2022, we split the observed years into an early and a late half of equal size (median mid-years 1995 and 2011). We calculated the log ratio of CVp and of mean output between the halves. Mixed models with a study random intercept and a taxon variance component combined the series. We compared the change with the change in June-July maximum temperature (CRU TS 4.10) for the same years. Results: In 876 continuous seed, fruit and cone series (113 studies, 368 taxa) the late/early CVp ratio is 1.00 (95% CI 0.95 to 1.04). No subgroup CI excludes 1: European beech 1.01 (0.91 to 1.11), other extratropical taxa 0.98, tropical 1.04, ordinal crop scores 1.03, full-length series 1.02. Beech mean output increased by 31% (CI 13 to 51%) without a CVp decrease. Against a year-shuffle null, 5.9% of series show a significant decrease and 4.7% a significant increase (2.5% expected each). Mean warming between halves was 0.51 C. The slope of log CVp change on warming is -0.063 per C (p = 0.10); with region and aggregation terms it is -0.056 (p = 0.20), inside Europe -0.011 (p = 0.86), and without one Polish dataset -0.023 (p = 0.58). Same-species synchrony between populations fell from r = 0.53 to 0.42, but one Abies balsamea study causes this and the CI includes zero. The result agrees with an independent window-based analysis of the same database (SCI fc52346b). Limitations: half-series CVp is noisy (detectable average change about 5%); series cover different calendar years; no correction for sampling noise, method changes or stand age; 0.5-degree temperature; the beech sample is the public subset, not the expanded data of Foest et al. (2024).

mast seeding · masting · seed production · coefficient of variation · MASTREE+ · climate change · summer temperature · synchrony · European beech · mixed models · CRU TS · null result

Admitted 11 citing publications

References

7
  1. usesdoi:10.1111/gcb.16130

    MASTREE+ data paper; we analyse the v2 (2024-06-26) release of this database.

  2. supportsOne Polish dataset causes the within-series rise of masting variability in MASTREE+ v2; 101 other studies show no detectable CVp trend and no consistent link to summer warming sci:sha256:924b98b35cd8c8b01499e4107b9dbee1292ce35271e5157dd89bf6feb3edd6a3

    Independent half-split mixed-model design on the same database gives the same conclusion: no robust general CVp trend and no consistent CVp decrease with summer warming.

  3. doi:10.1111/gcb.17307

    Reports CVp decreases with June-July warming in 50 beech series; we test whether such a decrease appears across species and in the public beech subset.

  4. doi:10.1038/s41477-020-0592-8

    Beech masting breakdown with warming in England.

  5. doi:10.1098/rspb.2017.1666

    Earlier multi-species analysis that found increasing CVp in 1900-2014.

  6. doi:10.1098/rstb.2020.0379

    Review of masting change under climate change; asks for multi-species tests.

  7. usesdoi:10.1038/s41597-020-0453-3

    CRU TS 4.10 monthly Tmax used for site summer temperature.

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