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Limits to reproduction and seed size-number trade-offs that shape forest dominance and future recovery

2022; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 13; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/s41467-022-30037-9

2041-1723

Tong Qiu, Robert A. Andrus, Marie‐Claire Aravena Acuña, Davide Ascoli, Yves Bergeron, Roberta Berretti, Daniel Berveiller, Michał Bogdziewicz, Thomas Boivin, Raúl Bonal, Don C. Bragg, Thomas Caignard, Rafael Calama, J. Julio Camarero, Chia‐Hao Chang‐Yang, Natalie L. Cleavitt, Benoı̂t Courbaud, François Courbet, T. Curt, Adrian J. Das, Evangelia N. Daskalakou, Hendrik Davi, Nicolas Delpierre, Sylvain Delzon, Michael C. Dietze, Sergio Donoso Calderón, Laurent Dormont, Josep María Espelta, Timothy J. Fahey, William Farfán-Ríos, Catherine A. Gehring, Gregory S. Gilbert, Georg Gratzer, Cathryn H. Greenberg, Qinfeng Guo, Andrew Hacket‐Pain, Arndt Hampe, Qingmin Han, Janneke Hille Ris Lambers, Kazuhiko Hoshizaki, Inés Ibáñez, Jill F. Johnstone, Valentin Journé, Daisuke Kabeya, Christopher L. Kilner, Thomas Kitzberger, Johannes M. H. Knops, Richard K. Kobe, Georges Künstler, Jonathan G. A. Lageard, Jalene M. LaMontagne, Mateusz Ledwoń, François Lefèvre, Theodor D. Leininger, Jean‐Marc Limousin, James A. Lutz, Diana Macias, Eliot J. B. McIntire, Christopher M. Moore, Emily Moran, Renzo Motta, Jonathan A. Myers, Thomas A. Nagel, Kyotaro Noguchi, Jean‐Marc Ourcival, Robert Parmenter, Ian S. Pearse, Ignacio Manuel Pérez-Ramos, Łukasz Piechnik, John R. Poulsen, Renata Poulton‐Kamakura, Miranda D. Redmond, Chantal D. Reid, Kyle C. Rodman, Francisco Rodríguez‐Sánchez, Javier Sanguinetti, C. Lane Scher, William H. Schlesinger, Harald Schmidt Van Marle, Barbara Seget, Shubhi Sharma, Miles R. Silman, Michael A. Steele, Nathan L. Stephenson, Jacob N. Straub, I‐Fang Sun, Samantha Sutton, Jennifer J. Swenson, Margaret Swift, Peter A. Thomas, María Uriarte, Giorgio Vacchiano, Thomas T. Veblen, Amy V. Whipple, Thomas G. Whitham, Andreas P. Wion, Boyd R. Wright, S. Joseph Wright‬, Kai Zhu, Jess K. Zimmerman, Roman Zlotin, Magdalena Żywiec, James S. Clark,

Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics

Abstract The relationships that control seed production in trees are fundamental to understanding the evolution of forest species and their capacity to recover from increasing losses to drought, fire, and harvest. A synthesis of fecundity data from 714 species worldwide allowed us to examine hypotheses that are central to quantifying reproduction, a foundation for assessing fitness in forest trees. Four major findings emerged. First, seed production is not constrained by a strict trade-off between seed size and numbers. Instead, seed numbers vary over ten orders of magnitude, with species that invest in large seeds producing more seeds than expected from the 1:1 trade-off. Second, gymnosperms have lower seed production than angiosperms, potentially due to their extra investments in protective woody cones. Third, nutrient-demanding species, indicated by high foliar phosphorus concentrations, have low seed production. Finally, sensitivity of individual species to soil fertility varies widely, limiting the response of community seed production to fertility gradients. In combination, these findings can inform models of forest response that need to incorporate reproductive potential.