Accurate estimates of seed production are central for understanding mast seeding mechanisms at tree and forest scales, and for designing sustainable management strategies. As trees are long-lived organisms, a long-term perspective is required to understand how reproduction acts during the life cycle of a tree. However, long-term series of seed production are challenging to obtain, as the available seed count procedures strictly rely on field methods, which are cost- and time-consuming, inherently limiting their widespread use at extensive spatial and temporal scales.

In this study, we proposed a simple, rapid and flexible field method based on counting the seed in mobile ground quadrats (GQ), which was tested in beech forests. Quadrat measurements were first validated against reference measurements obtained from litter traps (LT) in three permanent plots. Results indicated that GQ provides robust and reliable estimates of seeds, which are not affected by seed predation occurring at the forest floor.

Additional quadrat measurements were performed to evaluate the influence of sampling schemes (random, regular, systematic) on the estimation of mean seed production at the plot scale. One hundred quadrats were collected in 0.25 ha beech plots and considered as a reference for evaluating the different sampling schemes and sampling sizes. Measurements were performed in October (three plots), which represented the peak of seed fall, and November (two plots). Results indicate that about 25 randomly located measurements allowed to characterize plot-level mean seed production with an acceptable error below 20%, regardless of the different mean seed production observed between the studied plots and the sampling periods. If the 25 sampling points are arranged in a grid, the obtained mean estimates are within the confidence interval of the reference plot-level values.

准确估计种子产量对于了解树木和森林规模的桅杆播种机制以及设计可持续管理策略至关重要。由于树木是长寿的有机体，因此需要有长远的眼光才能理解树木在生命周期中的繁殖行为。然而，要获得长期的种子生产系列是具有挑战性的，因为可用的种子计数程序严格依赖于田间方法，这既费钱又费时，从而固有地限制了它们在广泛的空间和时间尺度上的广泛使用。

在这项研究中，我们提出了一种简单，快速且灵活的田间方法，该方法基于对移动地面直方动物（GQ）中的种子进行计数，并在山毛榉林中进行了测试。首先根据在三个永久性小区中从垃圾收集器（LT）获得的参考测量值对Quadrat测量值进行了验证。结果表明，GQ提供了可靠而可靠的种子估计，不受林底种子捕食的影响。

进行了额外的二次方测量，以评估采样方案（随机，常规，系统性）对样地尺度上平均种子产量的估计的影响。在0.25公顷的山毛榉地块中收集了一百个四足动物，并作为评估不同采样方案和采样大小的参考。在十月（三个地块）和11月（两个地块）进行了测量，十个月（三个地块）代表了种子下降的高峰。结果表明，大约有25个随机定位的测量值可以表征地块级平均种子产量，且可接受的误差低于20％，而与研究地块和采样期之间观察到的平均种子产量不同无关。如果将25个采样点排列在一个网格中，