Climate shapes flowering periods across plant communities

Abstract

Aim: Climate shapes the composition and function of plant communities globally, but it remains unclear how this influence extends to floral traits. Flowering phenology, or the time period in which a species flowers, has well-studied relationships with climatic signals at the species level but has rarely been explored at a cross-community and continental scale. Here, we characterise the distribution of flowering periods (months of flowering) across continental plant communities encompassing six biomes, and determine the influence of climate on community flowering period lengths. Location: Australia. Taxon: Flowering plants. Methods: We combined plant composition and abundance data from 629 standardised floristic surveys (AusPlots) with data on flowering period from the AusTraits database and additional primary literature for 2,983 species. We assessed abundance-weighted community mean flowering periods across biomes and tested their relationship with climatic annual means and the predictability of climate conditions using regression models. Results: Combined, temperature and precipitation (annual mean and predictability) explain 29% of variation in continental community flowering period. Plant communities with higher mean temperatures and lower mean precipitation have longer mean flowering periods. Moreover, plant communities in climates with predictable temperatures and, to a lesser extent, predictable precipitation have shorter mean flowering periods. Flowering period varies by biome, being longest in deserts and shortest in alpine and montane communities. For instance, desert communities experience low and unpredictable precipitation and high, unpredictable temperatures and have longer mean flowering periods, with desert species typically flowering at any time of year in response to rain. Main conclusions: Our findings demonstrate the role of current climate conditions in shaping flowering periods across biomes, with implications under climate change. Shifts in flowering periods across climatic gradients reflect changes in plant strategies, affecting patterns of plant growth and reproduction as well as the availability of floral resources across the landscape.