Ranta Hanna, Oksanen Annukka, Hokkanen Tatu, Bondestam Kristoffer, Heino Saini
Department of Biology, Aerobiology Unit, University of Turku, 20014 Turku, Finland.
Int J Biometeorol. 2005 Jan;49(3):146-51. doi: 10.1007/s00484-004-0228-0. Epub 2004 Aug 31.
Masting, the intermittent production of large crops of flowers by a plant population, is a common feature among trees in boreal and temperate forests. The pollen of many broadleaved trees causes allergic diseases, which are major causes of increasing health-care costs in industrialised countries. As the prevalence and severity of allergic diseases are connected with the concentrations of airborne pollen, an universal model predicting the intensity of the coming flowering would be a valuable tool for pollen information services, and ultimately for allergic people and allergologists. We investigated whether a resource budget model created in Japan explains the fluctuations in the annual pollen sums of Betula-species in north European data sets (10-12 years at 4 sites, 20 years at 10 sites). Using the shorter data sets, the model explained 76-92% of the annual fluctuations at five study sites. Using the 20-year data set, the percentage for southern Finland was much lower, only 48%, compared with the 85% of the 12-year data set. The annual pollen sums have been higher during the 1990s than in the 1980s, which may explain the ineffectiveness of the model, while applied to the 20-year data set. Our results support the resource budget model: the masting of birch species is regulated by weather factors together with the system of resource allocation among years. The model can serve pollen information service. However, only the 10 most recent years should be used to avoid interference from trends in changing vegetation and/or climate.
大年结实现象，即植物种群间歇性大量开花，是北方和温带森林树木的一个常见特征。许多阔叶树的花粉会引发过敏性疾病，这些疾病是工业化国家医疗保健成本增加的主要原因。由于过敏性疾病的患病率和严重程度与空气中花粉的浓度相关，一个预测即将到来的花期强度的通用模型对于花粉信息服务来说将是一个有价值的工具，最终对过敏人群和过敏症专科医生也是如此。我们研究了日本创建的一个资源预算模型是否能解释北欧数据集中桦木属物种年度花粉总量的波动情况（4个地点的数据为10 - 12年，10个地点的数据为20年）。使用较短的数据集时，该模型解释了五个研究地点年度波动的76% - 92%。使用20年数据集时，芬兰南部的解释比例要低得多，仅为48%，而12年数据集的这一比例为85%。20世纪90年代的年度花粉总量高于80年代，这可能解释了该模型在应用于20年数据集时效果不佳的原因。我们的结果支持资源预算模型：桦木属物种的大年结实现象受天气因素以及多年间资源分配系统的共同调节。该模型可用于花粉信息服务。然而应该仅使用最近10年的数据以避免不断变化的植被和/或气候趋势的干扰。
