Forecasting phenology under global warming

Abstract

As a consequence of warming temperatures around the world, spring and autumn phenologies have been shifting, with corresponding changes in the length of the growing season. Our understanding of the spatial and interspecific variation of these changes, however, is limited. Not all species are responding similarly, and there is significant spatial variation in responses even within species. This spatial and interspecific variation complicates efforts to predict phenological responses to ongoing climate change, but must be incorporated in order to build reliable forecasts. Here, we use a long-term dataset (1953 -2005) of plant phenological events in spring (flowering and leaf out) and autumn (leaf colouring and leaf fall) throughout Japan and South Korea to build forecasts that account for these sources of variability. Specifically, we used hierarchical models to incorporate the spatial variability in phenological responses to temperature to then forecast species' overall and site-specific responses to global warming. We found that for most species, spring phenology is advancing and autumn phenology is getting later, with the timing of events changing more quickly in autumn compared with the spring. Temporal trends and phenological responses to temperature in East Asia contrasted with results from comparable studies in Europe, where spring events are changing more rapidly than are autumn events. Our results emphasize the need to study multiple species at many sites to understand and forecast regional changes in phenology.

Differences in the environmental control of leaf senescence of four Quercus species coexisting in a Mediterranean environment

“…The patterns of emergence, abscission and leaf duration are evidently governed by genetic factors, but they are also affected by environmental ones, to which these patterns may be highly sensitive. This has led phenology to become an integral part of studies on climate change and its effects on the vegetation (Ibáñez et al, 2010;Chen & Xu, 2012;Clark et al, 2014).…”

The annual cycles of phytoplankton biomass

“…Ibáñ ez et al 2010; Richardson et al 2010). Observations of life-stage transitions of individual species (Menzel & Fabian 1999;Penuelas & Filella 2001;Ibáñ ez et al 2010) and satellite-based indices of vegetation greenness (Myneni et al 1997;Cleland et al 2007) on land show that spring onset has advanced, autumn senescence has delayed, the growing season has lengthened, and these changes are correlated with rising temperatures in boreal and temperate ecosystems. Terrestrial plants are powerful climate sentinels because their annual cycles of growth, reproduction and senescence are finely tuned to the annual climate cycle.…”

Diverse Responses of Remotely Sensed Grassland Phenology to Interannual Climate Variability over Frozen Ground Regions in Mongolia

“…Some recent studies reported that spring vegetation phenology is mainly controlled by air temperature in Northeast Asia and on the Tibetan Plateau within which some dry and cold regions exist, but precipitation was not well considered for these dry and cold regions in their studies [4,[8][9][10][11]. As shown in Figures 4 and 5, our study shows that spring phenology of grasslands is mainly controlled by precipitation in Mongolia, particularly by the precipitation of the previous autumn.…”

“…Most observed phenology trends are attributed to air temperature [4,[8][9][10][11]. Theoretically, vegetation phenology is controlled by many factors that differ with climate [2].…”