Data from: ENSO and frost co-determine decade-long temporal variation in flower and seed production in a subtropical rain forest

Flower and seed production of plants can be greatly influenced by both natural climatic oscillations and local weather extremes. However, owing to the rarity of long-term monitoring studies conducted at a sufficient temporal scale to capture climatic oscillations and the unpredictability of extreme weather events, evidence that demonstrates how these two external forcings act in concert to drive plant reproduction remains scarce. In addition, considerable variation in species' phenological responses to the external climatic forcings was often observed. Phylogenetic relationships may mediate this inter-specific variation, but previous studies yielded inconsistent results when testing this hypothesis. We monitored the flower and seed production in a subtropical rainforest, Fushan, Taiwan (24°45'N, 121°35'E), for over ten years (since September 2002). In March 2005, a record low temperature (-1.3°C) occurred at Fushan and caused great frost damage to plants. We used weekly phenological records and long-term meteorological data to assess the effects of climatic fluctuations and extreme weather event on plant reproductive output. We show that the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) indices, which integrated local climatic variables at Fushan over several months, were strongly associated with flower and seed production. The 2005 spring frost also had long-lasting effects on the flower and seed production of several species. In particular, we detected phylogenetic signals in the relationships between phenological responses of flowering production and several climatic variables (maximum temperature, irradiance, and ENSO34 index). By contrast, the relationships between seed production and climatic variables, as well as phenological responses to the frost event, did not exhibit a phylogenetic signal. Synthesis: Our findings add to the growing evidence that together the natural climatic oscillation (ENSO) and the extreme weather event (frost) determined the temporal variation in flower and seed production. In addition, phylogenetically closely related species resembled each other in their flowering responses to abiotic variation in this subtropical rainforest. Improved understanding of these abiotic and biotic interactions may help predicting population- and community-level phenological responses under future climate changes.Number of species flowering/fruiting monthly time seriesThis file contains the phenological time series collecting at the Fushan Forest Dynamics Plot from September 2002 to August 2012. There are four columns in this file: flower, fruit, flower.ds, fruit.df. The first two columns are the number of species flowering/fruiting. The last two column are the number of species flowering/fruiting after removing the seasonality using 'STL' function in R.monthly.phenology.data.txtMonthly climate dataThis file contains the local climate data from the Fushan meteorological station and three ENSO indices. These monthly time series start from January, 2001, and end at December, 2012. The local climate data has five variables: mean temperature, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, precipitation, and irradiance. Three ENSO indices are ENSO4, ENSO34, and SOI. The ENSO indices can also be obtained from the Climate Prediction Center, NOAA.monthly.climate.data.txtAnnual flower production of 44 speciesThis file contains the annual flower production of 44 species from the Fushan subtropical rain forest. The flower production of a species is defined as the number of traps receiving its flower within a phenological year. There are ten data points for each species. This data contains four columns: year, species, production, and postfrost. The column 'production' is the annual flower production, while 'postfrost' is a logical value (TRUE or FALSE) used to identify whether the data is before (FLASE) or after (TRUE) the spring frost event in March 2005.annual.flower.production.txtAnnual seed production of 28 speciesThis file contains the annual seed production of 28 species from the Fushan subtropical rain forest. The seed production of a species is defined as the number of seeds collected within a phenological year. There are ten data points for each species. This data contains four columns: year, species, production, and postfrost. The column 'production' is the annual seed production, while 'postfrost' is a logical value (TRUE or FALSE) used to identify whether the data is before (FLASE) or after (TRUE) the spring frost event in March 2005.annual.seed.production.txtPhylogenetic tree of 49 studied taxaThe file contains the phylogenetic tree of 49 studied taxa from the Fushan subtropical rain forest. The phylogenetic tree is generated by PHYLOMATIC given the species list. The tree is in NEWICK format.fs.phylo.tx