Reply to: Nutrient scarcity cannot cause mast seeding

Kelly's commentary regarding our paper1, claiming that nutrient scarcity cannot select for masting behaviour in plants, initiated a fruitful discussion on traditionally settled hypotheses about the evolution of reproductive behaviour in plants. In his commentary, Prof. Kelly raises support for a contrasting hypothesis explaining our observation that temporally variable seed production is more pronounced under nutrient scarcity, namely that nutrient scarcity does not directly cause seed production variability, but instead increases variability induced by economies of scale. The commentary hinges mainly on the argument that an economy of scale (EOS) is necessary to select for highly variable seed production. It also points out that there are no mechanisms by which nutrient scarcity would select for that particular trait over generations. In reply to the stimulating comment, we 1) propose a mechanism by which nutrient scarcity may select for highly variable seed production, with larger-scale weather patterns inducing masting synchrony across populations; 2) we further discuss why wind-pollination and predator satiation, the EOS suggested by Kelly, cannot be the only selective pressures that select for highly variable reproduction.