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Masting By Eighteen New Zealand Plant Species: The Role Of Temperature As A Synchronizing Cue, Eric M. Schauber, Dave Kelly, Peter Turchin, Chris Simon, William G. Lee, Robert B. Allen, Ian J. Payton, Peter R. Wilson, Phil E. Cowan, R E. Brockie

Publications

Masting, the intermittent production of large flower or seed crops by a population of perennial plants, can enhance the reproductive success of participating plants and drive fluctuations in seed-consumer populations and other ecosystem components over large geographic areas. The spatial and taxonomic extent over which masting is synchronized can determine its success in enhancing individual plant fitness as well as its ecosystem-level effects, and it can indicate the types of proximal cues that enable reproductive synchrony. Here, we demonstrate high intra- and intergeneric synchrony in mast seeding by 17 species of New Zealand plants from four families across >150000 km …