Study
Mast seeding in perennial plants: why, how, where?
Kelly, Dave; Sork, Victoria L.
Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 2002
A review of mast seeding — the synchronised, highly variable production of seed crops across a population — assembling the evidence for each proposed explanation: predator satiation, pollination efficiency, and resource matching.
- Studied in
- Quercus, Fagus, Nothofagus
- Sample size
- review of masting across perennial plant species and continents
Masting is widespread, strongly synchronised over large areas, and best supported by predator satiation and wind-pollination efficiency. Weather acts as the synchronising cue rather than as the cause, since resource availability alone does not produce the observed variability.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Mast seeding is an evolved reproductive strategy cued by weather, not simply a passive response to good and bad years.
How NatureHQ reads it
The distinction between cue and cause is the whole point and is routinely lost. Trees do not produce a huge acorn crop because it was a good summer; they use weather as a shared signal so that a whole population fruits at once, drowning the animals that eat seeds in more than they can possibly consume. In lean years those same animals starve back. It is a strategy directed at seed predators, and it is why acorn crops swing so wildly.
- A review; the relative weight of the explanations differs by species and system.
- Predator satiation and pollination efficiency are difficult to separate in wind-pollinated trees.
- Long-term seed-crop datasets are scarce outside the temperate northern hemisphere.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Trees
Huge acorn years are a strategy to swamp the animals that eat seeds, not just a good summer
Oak trees
An oak gall is grown by the oak — the wasp only supplies the instructions
Oak trees
Acorns fall straight down. Jays are what carry them anywhere useful
Germination
A dormant seed is not asleep — it is being actively held back until a cue arrives
Oak trees
Nobody has settled why oaks produce enormous acorn crops in some years and almost none in others
Published by: Academic book publishersPublished as an academic monograph.
doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.33.020602.095433
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-10.