10.5061/DRYAD.5X69P8D3K
Wion, Andreas
0000-0002-0701-2843
Colorado State University
Pearse, Ian
United States Geological Survey
Rodman, Kyle
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Veblen, Thomas
0000-0002-3037-640X
University of Colorado Boulder
Redmond, Miranda
Colorado State University
The effects of ENSO and the North American monsoon on mast seeding in two
Rocky Mountain conifer species
Dryad
dataset
2021
2021-12-22T00:00:00Z
2021-12-22T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0378
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5796950
180162718 bytes
5
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
We aimed to disentangle the patterns of synchronous and variable cone
production (i.e., masting) and its relationship to climate in two conifer
species native to dry forests of western North America. We used cone
abscission scars to reconstruct ca. 15 years of recent cone production in
Pinus edulis and Pinus ponderosa, and used redundancy analysis to relate
time series of annual cone production to climate indices describing the
North American monsoon and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). We
show that the sensitivity to climate and resulting synchrony in cone
production varies substantially between species. Cone production among
populations of P. edulis was much more spatially synchronous and more
closely related to large-scale modes of climate variability than were
populations of P. ponderosa. Large-scale synchrony in P. edulis cone
production was associated with the North American monsoon and we
identified a dipole pattern of regional cone production associated with
ENSO phase. In P. ponderosa, these climate indices were not strongly
associated with cone production, resulting in asynchronous masting
patterns among populations. This study helps frame our understanding of
mast seeding as a life history strategy and has implications for our
ability to forecast mast years in these species.
Data includes R code and datasets to reproduce figures and results from
the paper entitled "The effects of ENSO and the North American
monsoon on mast seeding in two Rocky Mountain conifer species"
Data are counts of annual cone production from two Rocky Mountain conifer
species, Pinus ponderosa and Pinus edulis, from 470 trees and 76 sites,
reconstructed using cone scars, from the time period 2003-2018. Data also
include rasters of monthly and seasonal climate, range maps of the two
species, and several other files needed to recreate the analyses and
figures. See the readme file for full description of files.