Forest type (primary unmanaged, secondary-growth and managed stands) did not influence the amount of seed production nor masting patterns. Along the study, mature seed production was highly variable across years (the population-level coefficient of variation, CVp: 0.98–1.14) and spatially synchronized (Pearson correlation coefficient: 0.83–0.86). We evaluated for 8 yrs the patterns of seed production in antarctic beech (Nothofagus antarctica) forests related to management and its influence on insect and bird pre-dispersal seed predation. vertebrates) or depending on local characteristics, remains seldom explored. However, whether the efficiency of this reproductive response may vary depending on type of seed predator (e.g., invertebrates vs. Mast seeding is characteristic of many long-lived tree species and widely proposed as a mechanism to reduce seed predation. crenata appeared to cope well with up to 10-fold variation in total seed production between years, but when the total seed production exceeded 20 times that of the prior year, the predators were satiated.
We found a negative correlation between insect predation and the ratio of current to previous year total seed production, suggesting that poor total seed years resulted in a decrease in predator populations. To test whether variation in annual total seed production resulted in fluctuations in predator populations, we examined the relationship between the ratio of current year total seed production to previous year total seed production, and the percentage of pre-dispersal seed predation in the current year. The coefficients of variation of sound seeds (1.3–2.1) were greater than those of total seeds (0.8–1.3) in each site.Pre-dispersal seed predation by moth larvae has a major influence on sound seed production in F.
We found less synchrony in total seed production than in sound seed production among sites. An 11-year study of total seed and seed production in five natural Japanese beech (Fagus crenata) forests in Hokkaido, northern Japan, estimated the spatial synchrony of masting and examined whether variation in annual total seed production resulted in fluctuations in pre-dispersal seed-predator populations.
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