Mast (botany) Mast seeding is defined as the highly variable production of fruit by a population. These intermittent pulses of food resources drive ecosystem-level functions and forest dynamics. The difference between a mast seeding year and a non-mast seeding year can be thousands of acorns, hickory nuts, beech nuts, etc. Mast seeding dominantly occurs in wind-pollinated tree species, but has also been observed in grasses and Dipterocarps. Masting, in the strict sense of the term, occurs only in monocarpic (or semelparous) species, whose members reproduce only once during their lifetime, then die. Hypothesis for the evolution of mast seeding can broadly be
Beech bark disease second type of scale insect, "Xylococcus betulae", which is non-host-specific, is native to North America and causes beech bark disease to a lesser degree than "Cryptococcus fagisuga". There are two fungi common to North America that are important to the beech bark disease process. They are "Neonectria faginata" and "Neonectria ditissima". The primary fungus is "N. faginata", though "N. ditissima" is very important in some areas. These fungi infect the tree through the wounds caused by the beech scale insect and then begin to produce spores. Spores are contained in perithecia, which are red, lemon-shaped fruiting bodies that form in