Apple (Malus pumila var. domestica) phenology is advancing due to rising air temperature in northern Japan

Abstract

Recent studies show advancing onset of plant growing season in many regions for the last several decades. With the well-established dependence of plant phenology on temperature, these trends are interpreted as an indication of global warming. For several decades, however, other determinants of plant phenology, e.g. varieties and trends in managed systems, may have changed and confounded the phenological trends. In this study, we tested if long-term changes in phenology of apple (Malus pumila var. domestica) are attributable to long-term changes in temperature by comparing the phenological response to long-term trend in air temperature, which is of our interest, with that to year-to-year fluctuation in air temperature, which should represent the real effect of temperature on phenology. We collected records of air temperature and phenological events (budding and flowering) in apple from 1977 to 2004 at six locations in Japan. Linear trends in flowering showed advancing rate in the range from 0.21 to 0.35 day yr À1 , statistically significant at three locations (Po0.05). We also found a warming trend in mean air temperature throughout March and April, with which flowering was closely correlated, in the range from 0.047 to 0.077 1C yr À1 , statistically significant at five locations (Po0.05). We separated the temperature time-series into two components: a long-term trend and a year-to-year fluctuation, by fitting smoothing spline to the trend and taking the residuals as the anomaly. We then fit a multiple regression model of phenological response to air temperature with separate coefficients for long-term trend and anomaly. Flowering date responded to the long-term trend at À3.8 day 1C À1 and to the anomaly at À4.6 day 1C À1 . The temperature coefficients were not statistically different from each other or among locations, suggesting that the advance of apple phenology has predominantly been caused by the temperature increase across the locations studied. The same result was also observed with budding.

Avaliação Fenológica Das Diferentes Estruturas De Frutificação Das Macieiras 'Gala' E 'Fuji' Na Região De Caçador-Sc

“…Estas mudanças fenológicas têm sido intensamente estudadas e classificadas de acordo com seu desenvolvimento, desde a dormência até à frutificação (FUJISAWA; KOBAYASHI, 2010;GUÉDON;OLIVEIRA et al, 2013).…”

“…A importância em se conhecer a influência das condições climáticas sobre os processos reprodutivos e, assim, possibilitar o desenvolvimento de tecnologias que minimizem os possíveis efeitos, aumenta à medida que as projeções de aquecimento global são cada vez mais alarmantes, pois, conforme já mencionado, este aumento da temperatura tem influência sobre as plantas, induzindo mudanças em diversos setores, como na época de floração (ROOT et al, 2003;CHMIELEWSKI et al, 2004;FUJISAWA;KOBAYASHI, 2010); no crescimento, maturação e, consequentemente, qualidade pós-colheita de frutos (WARRINGTON et al, 1999); na fotossíntese e na eficiência produtiva da planta pelo aumento elevado de CO 2 (HAN et al, 2012) (EMBRAPA, 2006). A média da precipitação pluvial anual é de 1.670mm, e a umidade relativa do ar média é de 78% (CIRAM/EPAGRI).…”

Variability of the Course of Tomato Growth and Development in Poland as an Effect of Climate Change

“…The observed changes most often oscillate from 1 to several days per 10 years, and less frequently -about a dozen days per 10 years (Fujisawa & Kobayashi, 2010;Tao et al, 2006). Acceleration of hop flowering observed in the Czech Republic amounted to -1.6 days/10 years (Mozny et al, 2009).…”

“…Since the mid-20 th century changes in air temperature values have had influence on the course of the growth and development of plants. All over the world research studies focused on the reactions of fruit trees (Chmielewski et al, 2004;Fujisawa & Kobayashi, 2010), wild-growing plants (Gordo & Sanz, 2009;Kalvāne et al, 2009;Moiseev et al, 2010;Yoshie, 2010), and crop plants ( Ahas et al, 2002;Dalezios et al, 2002;Kalbarczyk, 2009a;Mazurczyk et al, 2003;Menzel, 2000) have been conducted. Changes in temperature values lead to changes in duration of particular stages and the whole growing season of plants (Peiris et al, 1996;Song et al, 2008;Tao et al, 2006).…”

Identifying the impact of multi-hazards on crop yield—A case for heat stress and dry stress on winter wheat yield in northern China

“…Actually, some famers have already adapted themselves to climate change by altering the cultivars or sowing time (Fujisawa and Kobayashi, 2010). However, adaptive responses from farmers have been pointed out as simple and not ubiquitous (Bryan et al, 2009).…”