Data from: Fruiting strategies of perennial plants: a resource budget model to couple mast seeding to pollination efficiency and resource allocation strategies

Masting, a breeding strategy common in perennial plants, is defined by seed production that is highly variable over years and synchronized at the population level. Resource budget models (RBMs) proposed that masting relies on two processes: (i) the depletion of plant reserves following high fruiting levels, which leads to marked temporal fluctuations in fruiting; and (ii) outcross pollination that synchronizes seed crops among neighboring trees. We revisited the RBM approach to examine the extent to which masting could be impacted by the degree of pollination efficiency, by taking into account various logistic relationships between pollination success and pollen availability. To link masting to other reproductive traits, we split the reserve depletion coefficient into three biological parameters related to resource allocation strategies for flowering and fruiting. While outcross pollination is considered to be the key mechanism that synchronizes fruiting in RBMs, our model counterintuitively showed that intense masting should arise under low-efficiency pollination. When pollination is very efficient, medium-level masting may occur, provided that the costs of female flowering (relative to pollen production) and of fruiting (maximum fruit set and fruit size) are both very high. Our work highlights the powerful framework of RBMs, which include explicit biological parameters, to link fruiting dynamics to various reproductive traits and to provide new insights into the reproductive strategies of perennial plants.隔年结实（masting）是多年生植物常见的繁殖策略，其特征为种子产量年际波动剧烈且在种群水平上同步发生。资源预算模型（Resource Budget Models, RBMs）提出，隔年结实依赖两个核心过程：（i）高结实水平后植物储备的消耗，这会导致结实过程出现显著的时间动态波动；（ii）异交授粉，使邻近植株的种子结实同步化。本研究重新审视了RBM框架，通过纳入授粉成功率与花粉可获得性之间的多种逻辑关联，探究授粉效率高低对隔年结实的影响程度。为了将隔年结实与其他繁殖性状关联起来，我们将储备消耗系数拆解为三个与开花、结实的资源分配策略相关的生物学参数。尽管在传统RBM框架中，异交授粉被认为是实现结实同步的关键机制，但我们的模型却得出了反直觉的结论：在授粉效率较低的条件下，反而会出现强烈的隔年结实现象。当授粉效率极高时，倘若雌性开花（相较于花粉生产）与结实（涵盖最大坐果率与果实大小）的成本均处于极高水平，则可能出现中等强度的隔年结实。本研究凸显了RBM框架的强大应用潜力：该框架纳入了明确的生物学参数，能够有效关联结实动态与各类繁殖性状，为解析多年生植物的繁殖策略提供全新的研究视角。