Long‐term temporal changes of plant phenology in the Western Mediterranean

Abstract

Plants are altering their life cycles in response to current climatic change around the globe. More than 200 000 records for six phenological events (leaf unfolding, flowering, fruit ripening, fruit harvesting, leaf falling and growing season) of 29 perennial species for the period 1943-2003 recorded throughout Spain provide the longest temporal and the broadest spatial assessment of plant phenology changes in the Mediterranean region. The overwhelming majority of the 118 studied phenophases shifted their dates in recent decades. Such changes differed among phenological events. Leaf unfolding, flowering and fruiting are markedly advancing (À0.48, À0.59 and À0.32 days yr À1 , respectively), but only since the mid-1970s. Anemophilous have advanced more days their flowering than entomophilous. However, some species have delayed and others have advanced their leaf falling dates and as a result only a weak shift was observed in this event for the whole of the studied species ( 1 0.12 days yr À1 ). The growing season lengthened by 18 days, which implies an increase of 8% in the life of annual leaves. Such an increase was achieved mainly through the advance of leaf unfolding dates in the spring, one of the most productive times of year for vegetation in the Mediterranean. Shifts in the plant calendar were accompanied as well by long-term changes in the range of onset dates in 39% of studied phenophases. Leaf unfolding, flowering and growing season tended to reduce spatial variability, reflecting a faster and more synchronized onset (or duration) of phenophases across the study area. Changes in spatial variability may aggravate calendar mismatching with other trophic levels resulting from changes in dates. Because temporal responses differed markedly among species, calendar guilds of plants have changed, which suggests alterations of interspecific relationships in plant communities from Mediterranean ecosystems.

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

“…In Poland, the last spring frost may occur even at the end of June. The above-mentioned possible delay of autumn phenological dates (Gordo & Sanz, 2009;Matsumoto, 2010), in the case of tomato cultivated in Poland, manifests itself by delay of the end of harvesting. In the examined multi-annual period, the end of harvesting was delayed by 2 days /10 years.…”

“…In Germany changes of certain phenological dates of winter rye and fruit trees amounted to -2.0 to -2.9 days/10 years (Chmielewski et al, 2004). According to Estrella et al (2007) which had been measured since the mid-70s amounted to -3.2 to -5.9 days /10 years (Gordo & Sanz, 2009). A much bigger acceleration occurred in the case of wild-growing trees; in Lithuania and Latvia, European hazel flowering was accelerated by -1 to -11 days /10 years and alder bloomed earlier from -1 to -15 days /10 years (Kalvāne et al, 2009).…”

“…Delay of phenological dates according to Schleip et al (2009a) has been observed in central Poland and in the Baltic Sea region. Delay of phenological dates, proved by research, mainly pertains to the autumn period, but in this case the direction of change is diverse, depending on the examined plant species (Gordo & Sanz, 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).…”

Migration timing and stopover selection for barnacle geese Branta leucopsis

“…An alternative parameter that may be used to test the green wave hypothesis is temperature, which is an important factor for plant phenology (Gordo & Sanz, 2009;Menzel et al, 2006). Plant phenology studies have traditionally used models based on variables, such as growing degree days (GDD), i.e.…”