ArticleNature plants2020
Climate warming disrupts mast seeding and its fitness benefits in European beech.
Article in Nature plants, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Global patterns in the predator satiation effect of masting: A meta-analysis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Pooled it
- Oak masting under climate change: when spatially heterogeneous shifts in flowering phenology reshape pollen limitation.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Compound food failure on a deteriorated mast system drives Japan's bear conflict crisis.Science advances · 2026Article
- From molecular decline to regeneration failure: seed aging in European beech (Fagus sylvatica) challenges the conservation of forest reproductive material.Tree physiology · 2026Review
- European beech reproduction is not reduced by drought, including the 2003, 2018, and 2022 extremes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Regeneration Strategies in Seed Plants: A Continuum Shaping Survival.Ecology and evolution · 2026Review
- Long-term annual seed production data of individual European beech (Fagus sylvatica) trees in the Netherlands.Scientific data · 2026Article
- Masting Breakdown in European Beech Reduces Fitness Benefits of Masting, Partly Explained by Climate Change.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Reply to "No pervasive relationship between phyllosphere nitrifier abundance and canopy nitrification in European forests".National science review · 2026Article
- Article
- Predicting the potential geographic distribution of Fagus orientalis Lipsky under climate change using an ensemble model approach in Türkiye.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2025Article
- Weather drivers of reproductive variability in perennial plants and their implications for climate change risks.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Understory Dwarf Bamboo Modulates Leaf Litter Decomposition via Interception-Induced Litter Redistribution and Space-Dependent Decomposition Dynamics: A Case Study from Jinfo Mountain, China.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Connecting the dots: Managing species interaction networks to mitigate the impacts of global change.eLife · 2025Review
- Intraspecific variation in masting across climate gradients is inconsistent with the environmental stress hypothesis.Ecology · 2025Article
- Masting ontogeny: the largest masting benefits accrue to the largest trees.Annals of botany · 2025Article
- Growth decline in European beech associated with temperature-driven increase in reproductive allocation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Continent-Wide Drivers of Spatial Synchrony in Breeding Demographic Structure Across Wild Great Tit Populations.Ecology letters · 2025Article
- Tracking individual seed fate confirms mainly antagonistic interactions between rodents and European beech.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Warming reduces mid-summer flowering plant reproductive success through advancing fruiting phenology in an alpine meadow.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Many plants benefit from synchronous year-to-year variation in seed production, called masting. Masting benefits plants because it increases the efficiency of pollination and satiates predators, which reduces seed loss. Here, using a 39-year-long dataset, we show that climate warming over recent decades has increased seed production of European beech but decreased the year-to-year variability of seed production and the reproductive synchrony among individuals. Consequently, the benefit that the plants gained from masting has declined. While climate warming was associated with increased reproductive effort, we demonstrate that less effective pollination and greater losses of seeds to predators offset any benefits to the plants. This shows that an apparently simple benefit of climate warming unravels because of complex ecological interactions. Our results indicate that in masting systems, the main beneficiaries of climate-driven increases in seed production are seed predators, not plants.
Indexed as
Identifiers
32042155What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.