This $654,781 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) will fund collaborative research on continent-wide forest recruitment change and its interactions with climate, habitat, and consumers. Duke University will lead efforts to quantify current trends in tree seed production, seedling establishment, and recruitment rates across North America. Researchers will link these forest recruitment stages to climate and habitat variables and the vertebrate consumers of seeds, fruits, and nuts. They will employ extensive gradient sampling and predictive vertebrate modeling using existing data from camera traps, live trapping, and bird point counts. Products will include analyses identifying tree species limited by recruitment stage or habitat, quantifying relationships between vertebrate activity and forest demographics, and predictive distribution models accounting for climate-vertebrate interactions. Findings aim to improve understanding of food web implications from environmental change and support future forest management and conservation planning.