Abstract
This work augments research on masting for the economically important tropical tree Carapa guianensis Aublet, specifically on whether determinants of mast years vary regionally, spatially, and due to longer term ENSO climate patterns. Longer term measurements (an 11-year period in Acre and Roraima; 4 years and 8 months in Amapá) from three regions of the Brazilian Amazon allowed for the analysis of whether climate cues were regionally consistent for this species. We used generalized linear mixed models, to determine which factors were significant in predicting whether trees would produce in a given year and to model the seed production quantity. We found a positive effect of increasing the diameter at breast height (dbh) on the quantity and likelihood of seed production. Our results also suggested that ecosystems and climate cues may jointly affect seed production. In flooded forests, increases in dry season rainfall had a negative impact on the likelihood of seed production whilst none of the precipitation variables investigated influenced the quantity of seeds produced. In drier terra firme forests in Acre with extended dry seasons, increases in dry season precipitation had significant and positive impacts on both the likelihood and the quantity of seed production. Our results illustrate the importance of considering plant habitat and climate to better understand individual and regional differences in seed production and their responses to inter-annual climate variation.
Highlights
While there are some gaps in the data collection, seed production was measured during an 11-year period in
Endent of masting phenomenon due to research indicating that larger seeded speWe report findings from a spatially and temporally extensive guianensis seed production dataset
This work is an important contribution to understanding how climate cues play a role in the synchronous production and seed production quantity
Summary
Incentives to clear tropical forests for extractive activities like mining [1,2,3], cattle ranching [4], and large-scale agricultural production [5,6] have led to global forest loss. Governments often incentivize or turn a blind eye to the impacts of this commodity-driven deforestation due to its associated economic benefits [2,8,9] or for political reasons [10]. Non-timber forest products (NTFPs), often literally called fruits of the forest, can provide economic benefit [14,15,16,17] and maintain forest cover and species persistence even under high harvest levels [18,19]. While often unrecognized in national statistics, NTFP harvest can benefit the high proportions of rural households; 83% of rural households collected the edible Dioscorea hirtiflora Benth
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