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Nutrient scarcity cannot cause mast seeding

Nature Plants volume 6, pages 760–762 (2020)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 22 June 2020

The Original Article was published on 02 December 2019

arising from M. Fernández-Martínez et al. Nature Plants https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-019-0549-y (2019)

Mast seeding (where populations of long-lived plants have synchronous, highly variable reproduction across years1) imposes inescapable costs on the plants, so there is strong interest in identifying compensating factors that can make masting selectively favoured. A recent global analysis shows that masting is stronger in plants under conditions of nutrient scarcity2 and claims that masting could have evolved as an adaptation to nutrient scarcity. But since nutrient scarcity does not make large reproductive efforts more efficient (providing an economy of scale or EOS), it cannot cause masting, though it can amplify masting in the presence of an EOS such as predator satiation. That distinction is important for better understanding the distribution of mast seeding and how masting will respond to anthropogenic change3,4.

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Fig. 1: Potential plant responses to nutrient scarcity which reduces available reproductive effort by 40%.

References

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  1. Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Dave Kelly

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Correspondence to Dave Kelly.

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Kelly, D. Nutrient scarcity cannot cause mast seeding. Nat. Plants 6, 760–762 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-0702-7

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