Climate change weakens the tie between weather and mast seeding

Abstract

Climate change has been shown to affect the interannual variation and synchrony among individuals in seed production of masting trees, yet the proximate mechanisms driving these patterns remain unclear. A recent study by Michał Bogdziewicz and colleagues shows that the relationship between weather cues and seed initiation weakens in European beech as warming increases, resulting in progressive asynchrony of seed maturation. This study emphasizes the vulnerability of the relationship between environmental cues and forest reproduction to climate change.