The effects of ENSO and the North American monsoon on mast seeding in two Rocky Mountain conifer species

We aimed to disentangle the patterns of synchronous and variable cone production (i.e., masting) and its relationship to climate in two conifer species native to dry forests of western North America. We used cone abscission scars to reconstruct ca. 15 years of recent cone production in Pinus edulis and Pinus ponderosa, and used redundancy analysis to relate time series of annual cone production to climate indices describing the North American monsoon and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). We show that the sensitivity to climate and resulting synchrony in cone production varies substantially between species. Cone production among populations of P. edulis was much more spatially synchronous and more closely related to large-scale modes of climate variability than were populations of P. ponderosa. Large-scale synchrony in P. edulis cone production was associated with the North American monsoon and we identified a dipole pattern of regional cone production associated with ENSO phase. ...