No evidence of carbon storage usage for seed production in 18 dipterocarp masting species in a tropical rain forest

Shuichi Igarashi*, Shohei Yoshida, Tanaka Kenzo, Shoko Sakai, Hidetoshi Nagamasu, Fujio Hyodo, Ichiro Tayasu, Mohizah Mohamad, Tomoaki Ichie

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Most canopy species in lowland tropical rain forests in Southeast Asia, represented by Dipterocarpaceae, undergo mast reproduction synchronously at community level during a general flowering event. Such events occur at irregular intervals of 2–10 years. Some species do not necessarily participate in every synchronous mast reproduction, however. This may be due to a lack of carbohydrate resources in the trees for masting. We tested the hypothesis that interspecific differences in the time required to store assimilates in trees for seed production are due to the frequency of masting and/or seed size in each species. We examined the relationship between reproductive frequency and the carbon accumulation period necessary for seed production, and between the seed size and the period, using radiocarbon analysis in 18 dipterocarp canopy species. The mean carbon accumulation period was 0.84 years before seed maturation in all species studied. The carbon accumulation period did not have any significant correlation with reproductive frequency or seed size, both of which varied widely across the species studied. Our results show that for seed production, dipterocarp masting species do not use carbon assimilates stored for a period between the masting years, but instead use recent photosynthates produced primarily in a masting year, regardless of the masting interval or seed size of each species. These findings suggest that storage of carbohydrate resources is not a limiting factor in the masting of dipterocarps, and that accumulation and allocation of other resources is important as a precondition for participation in general flowering.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)717-726
    Number of pages10
    JournalOecologia
    Volume204
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 14 Mar 2024

    Scopus Subject Areas

    • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
    • Ecology

    User-Defined Keywords

    • Allocation
    • Carbohydrate resources
    • Dipterocarpaceae
    • General flowering
    • Radiocarbon

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