Oak masting breaks down in a highly fragmented, pollen-limited landscape
) over 11 years in a highly fragmented landscape in California's Central Valley in which many trees lacked conspecific neighbors within 500 m. We found that oaks with closer neighbors produced more acorns on average than oaks with fewer neighbors. Consistent with theories linking mast seeding and pollination, the isolation effect was most apparent in the highest seed production years. While individual trees showed substantial interannual variation in seed production, we observed little synchrony in seed production among individuals compared to intact oak populations throughout California. Our results indicate that highly fragmented populations suffer signs of pollen limitation and do not produce synchronous seed crops. Fragmentation, alongside climate change, is a dimension of global change that interrupts the typical seed production dynamics of trees.
Authors
- WALTER D. KOENIG
- Ian S. Pearse (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7098-0495)
- Jill H. Baty
- Robert Olson
- Mario B. Pesendorfer
Institutions
- United States Geological Survey (US)
- Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (US)
- Institute of Forest Ecology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SK)
- University of California Hastings College of the Law (US)
- Engineering Data Management (US)
- National Zoological Park (US)
- ABS Consulting (United States) (US)
- Conservation Biology Institute
- Fort Collins Science Center
Publication Details
- Journal
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2026-05-11
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2533900123
- Primary Topic
- Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00