The seasonal climate drivers of the carbon cycle in tropical forests remain poorly known, although these forests account for more carbon assimilation and storage than any other terrestrial ecosystem. Based on a unique combination of seasonal pan-tropical data sets from 89 experimental sites (68 include aboveground wood productivity measurements and 35 litter productivity measurements), their associated canopy photosynthetic capacity (enhanced vegetation index, EVI) and climate, we ask how carbon assimilation and aboveground allocation are related to climate seasonality in tropical forests and how they interact in the seasonal carbon cycle. We found that canopy photosynthetic capacity seasonality responds positively to precipitation when rainfall is < 2000 mm yr⁻¹ (water-limited forests) and to radiation otherwise (light-limited forests). On the other hand, independent of climate limitations, wood productivity and litterfall are driven by seasonal variation in precipitation and evapotranspiration, respectively. Consequently, light-limited forests present an asynchronism between canopy photosynthetic capacity and wood productivity. First-order control by precipitation likely indicates a decrease in tropical forest productivity in a drier climate in water-limited forest, and in current light-limited forest with future rainfall < 2000 mm yr⁻¹.

Significant gaps remain in understanding the response of plant reproduction to environmental change. This is partly because measuring reproduction in long‐lived plants requires direct observation over many years and such datasets have rarely been made publicly available. Here we introduce MASTREE+, a data set that collates reproductive time‐series data from across the globe and makes these data freely available to the community. MASTREE+ includes 73,828 georeferenced observations of annual reproduction (e.g. seed and fruit counts) in perennial plant populations worldwide. These observations consist of 5971 population‐level time‐series from 974 species in 66 countries. The mean and median time‐series length is 12.4 and 10 years respectively, and the data set includes 1122 series that extend over at least two decades (≥20 years of observations). For a subset of well‐studied species, MASTREE+ includes extensive replication of time‐series across geographical and climatic gradients. Here we describe the open‐access data set, available as a.csv file, and we introduce an associated web‐based app for data exploration. MASTREE+ will provide the basis for improved understanding of the response of long‐lived plant reproduction to environmental change. Additionally, MASTREE+ will enable investigation of the ecology and evolution of reproductive strategies in perennial plants, and the role of plant reproduction as a driver of ecosystem dynamics.

Little is known about drivers and trends of historic fire regimes in the Araucaria araucana forests of south-western Argentina. Fire history in these forests was reconstructed by the analysis of 246 fire-scarred partial cross-sections from this fire-resistant tree collected at 10 sites in Neuquén, northern Patagonia. Fire chronologies showed an increase in fire occurrence during the nineteenth century and a sharp decrease since the early twentieth century. The creation of Lanín National Park in 1937, the change in human activities, and the active suppression of wildfires led to a significant increase in mean fire intervals since 1930. In addition to these multidecadal to centennial scale drives of fire frequency, interannual variability in wildfire activity was associated with El Niño–Southern Oscillation. Years of widespread fire are related to negative departures of both Niño 3.4 and Pacific Decadal Oscillation indexes (i.e. La Niña conditions), as well as coincident phases of positive Southern Annular Mode and La Niña events. Temporal variations in the Araucaria fire history in Argentina clearly show the combined effect of human and climate influences on fire regimes. A comparison with previous fire history studies in the Araucaria forests of Chile reveals substantial differences related to differences in human activities on both sides of the Andes and the earlier implementation of protected areas in Argentina.