Pacific Southwest

Title: Patterns of Geographic Synchrony in Growth and Reproduction of Oaks Within California and Beyond

Author: Koenig, Walter D.; Knops, Johannes M.H.

Date: 1997

Source: In: Pillsbury, Norman H.; Verner, Jared; Tietje, William D., technical coordinators. 1997. Proceedings of a symposium on oak woodlands: ecology, management, and urban interface issues; 19–22 March 1996; San Luis Obispo, CA. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-160. Albany, CA: Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; p. 101-108

Station ID: GTR-PSW-160

Description: We measured patterns of spatial synchrony in growth and reproduction by oaks using direct acorn surveys, published data on acorn production, and tree-ring chronologies. The two data sets involving acorn production both indicate that acorn crops are detectably synchronous over areas of at least 500 to 1,000 km not only within individual species but among species that require the same number of years to mature acorns. Although no tree-ring data are available for California oaks, growth patterns among oaks elsewhere are statistically correlated between sites up to 2,500 km apart. These results indicate that both tree growth and acorn production patterns covary over large geographic scales and support the hypothesis that argescale weather patterns play an important role in determining these life-history parameters of California oaks. They also have important implications for the population biology of wildlife that live in CaliforniaÂ’s oak woodlands.

Keywords: 

View and Print this Publication (165 KB)

Publication Notes: 

• We recommend that you also print this page and attach it to the printout of the article, to retain the full citation information.
• This article was written and prepared by U.S. Government employees on official time, and is therefore in the public domain.
• You may send email to pubrequest@fs.f ed.us to request a hard copy of this publication. (Please specify exactly which publication you are requesting and your mailing address.)

 Get the latest version of the Adobe Acrobat reader or Acrobat Reader for Windows with Search and Accessibility

Citation

Koenig, Walter D.; Knops, Johannes M.H.  1997.  Patterns of Geographic Synchrony in Growth and Reproduction of Oaks Within California and Beyond.   In: Pillsbury, Norman H.; Verner, Jared; Tietje, William D., technical coordinators. 1997. Proceedings of a symposium on oak woodlands: ecology, management, and urban interface issues; 19–22 March 1996; San Luis Obispo, CA. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-160. Albany, CA: Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; p. 101-108.