Conveners
Unravelling mechanisms underlying reproductive synchrony: from gene to ecosystems: Part A
- Dave Kelly (University of Canterbury)
- Akiko Satake (Department of Biology, Fuculty of Science, Kyushu University, Japan)
- Michał Bogdziewicz (Adam Mickiewicz University)
Unravelling mechanisms underlying reproductive synchrony: from gene to ecosystems: Part B
- Dave Kelly (University of Canterbury)
- Akiko Satake (Department of Biology, Fuculty of Science, Kyushu University, Japan)
- Michał Bogdziewicz (Adam Mickiewicz University)
Description
The intermittent and synchronized production of a large amount of flowers and seeds, called masting or mast seeding, has been reported across a broad group of plant species. Drastic increase in seed production in mast years has a considerable effect on seedling recruitment and animal populations that feed on seeds. This minisymposium will feature recent findings on the mechanism of masting with a goal of developing predictive models that can help forecast community and ecosystem dynamics under changing environments. We will bridge the studies from genetic analyses of masting and data analyses at a global scale. We hope that bringing together the gene-, plant-, and population-level understanding of factors driving reproductive synchrony will allow us to refine the current theory of proximate drivers of masting, and create a new generation of predictive models.
Mast seeding is the intermittent synchronous production of large seed crops by a population of perennial plants. This process is noteworthy in various ways. To the lay public, masting is noteworthy because it is very obvious when an occasional huge seed crop covers large areas.
In evolutionary terms it is noteworthy because delayed reproduction imposes inescapable costs on the plants, so it...
The highly variable and synchronized production of large seed crops by plant populations, called masting or mast seeding, has been reported across a broad group of plant species. While there is consensus on the evolutionary drivers of masting, the proximate mechanisms are more controversial. Several hypotheses make predictions about the possible drivers of synchrony in masting species,...
The intermittent and synchronized production of a large amount of flowers and seeds is called masting or mast seeding. A family of resource budget models have been effective to evaluate proximate causes of masting. Applying recent advances in molecular and genetic studies about flowering time control to masting species is increasingly useful to unravel the underlying mechanism of masting. To...
Bamboos are clonal plants that undergo mass flowering followed by simultaneous death after a long-term period of rhizomatous vegetative growth. The time to flowering after germination depends on species and shows a geographic cline in which it is short in tropical region and becomes longer as we move to northward into temperate region. As another geographic tendency in bamboo, rhizome systems...
Masting is the highly variable and synchronous production of seeds by plants. Masting can have cascading effects on plant population dynamics and forest properties such as tree growth, carbon stocks, regeneration, nutrient cycling, or future species composition. However, the spatio-temporal patterns and drivers of masting at the continental scale remain unknown. As a consequence, masting has...