Meghan Willcoxon at Quanta:
Each summer, like clockwork, millions of beech trees throughout Europe sync up, tuning their reproductive physiology to one another. Within a matter of days, the trees produce all the seeds they’ll make for the year, then release their fruit onto the forest floor to create a new generation and feed the surrounding ecosystem.
It’s a reproductive spectacle known as masting that’s common to many tree species, but European beeches are unique in their ability to synchronize this behavior on a continental scale. From England to Sweden to Italy — across multiple seas, time zones and climates — somehow these trees “know” when to reproduce. But how?
A group of ecologists has now identified the distinctive cue — what they call the “celestial starting gun” — that, along with balmy weather, triggers the phenomenon.
More here.