BACKGROUND AND AIMS In a range of plant species, the distribution of individual mean fecundity is skewed and dominated by a few highly fecund individuals. Larger plants produce greater seed crops, but the exact nature of the relationship between size and reproductive patterns are poorly understood. This is especially clear in plants that reproduce by exhibiting synchronized quasi-periodic variation in fruit production: a process which is called masting. METHODS We investigated covariation of plant size and fecundity with individual-plant level masting patterns and seed predation in twelve mast seeding species: Pinus pinea, Astragalus scaphoides, Sorbus aucuparia, Quercus ilex, Q. humilis, Q. rubra, Q. alba, Q. montana, Chionochloa pallens, C. macra, Celmisia lyallii, and Phormium tenax. KEY RESULTS Fecundity was non-linearly related to masting patterns. Small and unproductive plants frequently failed to produce any seeds, which elevated their annual variation and decreased synchrony. Above a low fecundity threshold, plants had similar variability and synchrony, regardless of their size and productivity. CONCLUSIONS Our study shows that within-species variation in masting patterns is correlated with variation in fecundity, which in turn is related to plant size. Low synchrony of low-fertility plants shows that the failure years were idiosyncratic to each small plant, which in turn implies that the small plants fail to reproduce because of plant-specific factors (e.g. internal resource limits). Thus, the behavior of these sub-producers is apparently the result of trade-offs in resource allocation and environmental limits with which the small plants cannot cope. Plant size, and especially fecundity and propensity for mast failure years, play a major role in determining the variability and synchrony of reproduction in plants.

中文翻译：

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桅杆是否与植物大小成比例？小型和非生产性个体的高繁殖变异性和低同步性

背景和目的在一系列植物物种中，个体平均繁殖力的分布是倾斜的，并被少数高繁殖力的个体所支配。较大的植物会产生更多的种子作物，但人们对大小和繁殖模式之间关系的确切性质知之甚少。这在通过在水果生产中表现出同步准周期性变化来繁殖的植物中尤为明显：这个过程被称为 masting。方法我们研究了植物大小和繁殖力与十二种肥大播种物种的单株水平肥大模式和种子捕食的协变：松树、黄芪、山梨、冬青、Q. humilis、Q. rubra、Q. alba、Q . montana、Chionochloa pallens、C. macra、Celmisia lyallii 和 Phormium tenax。主要结果 繁殖力与肥大模式呈非线性相关。小型和非生产性植物经常无法产生任何种子，这增加了它们的年度变异并降低了同步性。在低繁殖力阈值之上，植物具有相似的变异性和同步性，无论它们的大小和生产力如何。结论 我们的研究表明，肥大模式的种内变异与繁殖力的变异相关，而后者又与植物大小有关。低生育力植物的低同步性表明每个小植物的失败年份是特殊的，这反过来意味着小植物由于植物特定因素（例如内部资源限制）而无法繁殖。因此，这些次级生产者的行为显然是小工厂无法应对的资源分配和环境限制权衡的结果。植物大小，尤其是繁殖力和肥大失败年的倾向，在确定植物繁殖的变异性和同步性方面起着重要作用。