Characterizing the dynamics of cone production for longleaf pine forests in the southeastern United States

Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) forests are historically and ecologically important and also endangered ecosystems in the southeastern United States. In addition to extensive exploitation and land use conversion, one characteristic which contributed to their dramatic decline and presents a continuing challenge to their future recovery is the sporadic timing of their seed production. In this study, about 60 years of cone production data for longleaf pine forests at four different sites were quantitatively characterized from different perspectives. Results indicated that longleaf pine was different from masting species and there was no general trend of increasing coefficient of variation (CV) in cone production through time. On a decade scale, there was a significantly positive correlation between the CV of cone production and CV of average annual air temperature, but the CV of annual precipitation was negatively correlated with the CV of cone production at the Escambia (AL) and Blackwater (FL) sites. Phase coupling of cone production with a strength of approximately 0.4 existed only between the Escambia and Blackwater sites and no significant phase coupling was found between other sites. The implications of these results for forest management are discussed from a perspective of spatial and temporal complexity.