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
Antarctic Beech at Comboyne sediments of the Lorne basin. The plateau has a wet, sub tropical climate, though subject to frost and occasional snow. The Antarctic Beech group (Nothofagaceae) is an ancient type of tree, of significance to southern hemisphere botanical distribution. This group is often associated with the breakup of the ancient super continent Gondwana. Plants in the Nothofagaceae are currently found in southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and Australasia (east and southeast Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and New Caledonia). Previously known as Nothofagus moorei, the Antarctic Beech is a cool temperate rainforest tree, usually seen on the Great Dividing Range up