Seed production up,
surely that’s a good thing, no?
Benefits declined.
Whilst the world stirs slowly into action to limit climate change, general consensus is that there will be some winners amongst the losers as temperatures rise. All organisms have their niches and changing environments will benefit some just as much they cost others.
Or at least that’s the simplistic take on the matter…
New research into plant masting – synchronous seed production – suggests that all isn’t as clear cut as that. The phenomenon of masting is beneficial to plants as the synchronicity “increases the efficiency of pollination and satiates predators” – sure predators will eat lots of seeds but the overwhelming numbers of seeds mean that large numbers aren’t eaten. It’s a bit like the synchronous emergence of some cicada species, which only emerge on mass every 13 or 17 years, with the gaps between emergence ensuring that predators aren’t reliant on the cicadas as a stable food source.
Bogdziewicz et al. (2020) looked at a 39 year-long masting dataset for the European beech and found that whilst climate warming increased seed production, the trees are actually losing out for three reasons:
1) Increased temperatures result in more consistent numbers of seed produced year-on-year – preventing the traditional boom and bust nature of seed production that helps to limit predator numbers.
2) Increased temperatures reduce synchronicity, resulting in less effective pollination.
3) Reduced seed production synchronicity means that predators aren’t overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of seeds available and are able to eat more seeds over a longer period of time.
All of this means that whilst the simple story suggests climate warning leads to increased seed production, the truth is more complex and instead those that actually benefit are those that eat the seeds.
Original research: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-0592-8