Forecasting phenology: from species variability to community patterns

Diez, Jeffrey M.; Ibáñez, Inés; Miller‐Rushing, Abraham J.; Mazer, Susan J.; Crimmins, Theresa M.; Crimmins, Michael A.; Bertelsen, C. David; Inouye, David W.

doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01765.x

Cited by 197 publications

(246 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…1B) (13)(14)(15), but our results do not support this assumption. In this plant community, for every day that species-level first flowering advanced, the timing of peak flowering advanced by only 0.55 ± 0.09 d (R 2 = 0.42, F 1, 58 = 41.8, P < 0.0001).…”

Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…Both temperature and the timing of snowmelt are strongly associated with shifts in flowering phenology in this study system (6,7,(11)(12)(13), independently Significance Seasonal timing of biological events, phenology, is one of the strongest bioindicators of climate change. Our general understanding of phenological responses to climate change is based almost solely on the first day on which an event is observed, limiting our understanding of how ecological communities may be responding as a whole.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 69%

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Shifts in flowering phenology reshape a subalpine plant community

CaraDonna

Iler

Inouye

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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476

610

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Phenology-the timing of biological events-is highly sensitive to climate change. However, our general understanding of how phenology responds to climate change is based almost solely on incomplete assessments of phenology (such as first date of flowering) rather than on entire phenological distributions. Using a uniquely comprehensive 39-y flowering phenology dataset from the Colorado Rocky Mountains that contains more than 2 million flower counts, we reveal a diversity of species-level phenological shifts that bring into question the accuracy of previous estimates of long-term phenological change. For 60 species, we show that first, peak, and last flowering rarely shift uniformly and instead usually shift independently of one another, resulting in a diversity of phenological changes through time. Shifts in the timing of first flowering on average overestimate the magnitude of shifts in the timing of peak flowering, fail to predict shifts in the timing of last flowering, and underrepresent the number of species changing phenology in this plant community. Ultimately, this diversity of species-level phenological shifts contributes to altered coflowering patterns within the community, a redistribution of floral abundance across the season, and an expansion of the flowering season by more than I mo during the course of our study period. These results demonstrate the substantial reshaping of ecological communities that can be attributed to shifts in phenology.growing season | no-analogue community | phenological mismatch | phenology curve | species interactions P henology, the timing of biological events, is intimately tied to the reproduction and survival of organisms (1). Phenological events generally are occurring earlier in temperate environments in accordance with climate change, although several recent studies have emphasized species-specificity in the direction and magnitude of change (2-5). The great majority of these longterm datasets contain a single measure of phenology for individual species, most often the first day on which a biological event is observed (i.e., "phenological firsts" such as first flowering) (Fig. 1A). In addition to phenological firsts, basic components of an entire phenological response include the timing of the ending of a biological event and details of intermediate stages, such as the timing and magnitude of peak abundance or activity (Fig. 1A). Given that phenological firsts represent the early tail of a population-level response, most assessments of phenological change to date may provide an incomplete view of the magnitude of change, the number of responsive species, and how species-level shifts contribute to change at higher levels of biological organization.We have amassed a unique long-term record of flowering phenology that allows us to investigate complete phenological responses for a plant community. Over a 39-y period , we have sampled a montane site (2,900 m elevation) in Colorado, USA, counting the total number of flowers of 121 plant species across a series of permanent...

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Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 69%

Shifts in flowering phenology reshape a subalpine plant community

CaraDonna

Iler

Inouye

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

476

610

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“…The majority of these studies have described and generated predictions for phenology shifts in terms of thermal conditions (12,21), although different organisms, and even the different phenological events of a single organism, may be sensitive to other kinds of climate cues as well (22,23), such as snowmelt (24) or frost (25). As different aspects of climate are shifting at dissimilar rates (26), phenological synchrony among species may be disrupted even if the species individually keep pace with environmental change.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Community-level phenological response to climate change

Ovaskainen

Скороходова

Yakovleva

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

267

208

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Climate change may disrupt interspecies phenological synchrony, with adverse consequences to ecosystem functioning. We present here a 40-y-long time series on 10,425 dates that were systematically collected in a single Russian locality for 97 plant, 78 bird, 10 herptile, 19 insect, and 9 fungal phenological events, as well as for 77 climatic events related to temperature, precipitation, snow, ice, and frost. We show that species are shifting their phenologies at dissimilar rates, partly because they respond to different climatic factors, which in turn are shifting at dissimilar rates. Plants have advanced their spring phenology even faster than average temperature has increased, whereas migratory birds have shown more divergent responses and shifted, on average, less than plants. Phenological events of birds and insects were mainly triggered by climate cues (variation in temperature and snow and ice cover) occurring over the course of short periods, whereas many plants, herptiles, and fungi were affected by long-term climatic averages. Year-to-year variation in plants, herptiles, and insects showed a high degree of synchrony, whereas the phenological timing of fungi did not correlate with any other taxonomic group. In many cases, species that are synchronous in their year-to-year dynamics have also shifted in congruence, suggesting that climate change may have disrupted phenological synchrony less than has been previously assumed. Our results illustrate how a multidimensional change in the physical environment has translated into a community-level change in phenology.global warming | mismatch | trophic interactions | boreal forest T he timing of phenological events is shifting as a result of climate change (1-5). Together with other adaptive mechanisms, plasticity in phenology is essential for maintaining many aspects of biodiversity in a changing environment (5-7), such as species' demography (8), species interactions (3), and species distributions (9). As different species within a community may show different responses to climate variation (10, 11), many studies have speculated on the possibility that phenological synchrony within ecological communities may be extensively disrupted (12-15). Conversely, other studies including observational evidences, theoretical considerations, and small-scale experiments have suggested that the maintenance of synchrony in terrestrial and aquatic systems may be common (16)(17)(18)(19). Therefore, the extent to which the stability and persistence of natural systems will be hampered as a result of loss of phenological synchrony remains largely an open question. Addressing this pertinent question is challenging because of the complex, dynamic, and often poorly understood structure of ecological interaction networks.To date, most studies evaluating the maintenance or disruption of phenological synchrony have examined whether longterm phenological shifts have been congruent between interacting species and environmental conditions (18,20). The majority of these studies have describ...

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“…Analyses of single species produce richly detailed results that can be difficult to generalize (e.g., Forister et al 2011a), while analyses of community richness or diversity sacrifice biological detail in exchange for results that are easier to interpret and extrapolate (Currie et al 2004). Hierarchical models can estimate effects at the community and species level simultaneously, and provide an opportunity to study full assemblages of species without sacrificing the biological detail of species-specific dynamics (Royle and Dorazio 2008, Mutshinda et al 2011, Diez et al 2012. Bayesian implementations of hierarchical models have been particularly powerful for field data and ecological applications because of their ability to handle heterogenous and unbalanced data (Ellison 2004, Gelman et al 2004, McMahon and Diez 2007, Fordyce et al 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A hierarchical perspective on the diversity of butterfly species' responses to weather in the Sierra Nevada Mountains

Nice

Forister

Gompert

et al. 2014

Ecology

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Abstract. An important and largely unaddressed issue in studies of biotic-abiotic relationships is the extent to which closely related species, or species living in similar habitats, have similar responses to weather. We addressed this by applying a hierarchical, Bayesian analytical framework to a long-term data set for butterflies which allowed us to simultaneously investigate responses of the entire fauna and individual species. A small number of variables had community-level effects. In particular, higher total annual snow depth had a positive effect on butterfly occurrences, while spring minimum temperature and El Nin˜o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) sea-surface variables for April-May had negative standardized coefficients. Our most important finding was that variables with large impacts at the community-level did not necessarily have a consistent response across all species. Species-level responses were much more similar to each other for snow depth compared to the other variables with strong community effects. This variation in species-level responses to weather variables raises important complications for the prediction of biotic responses to shifting climatic conditions. In addition, we found that clear associations with weather can be detected when considering ecologically delimited subsets of the community. For example, resident species and non-ruderal species had a much more unified response to weather variables compared to non-resident species and ruderal species, which suggests local adaptation to climate. These results highlight the complexity of biotic-abiotic interactions and confront that complexity with methodological advances that allow ecologists to understand communities and shifting climates while simultaneously revealing species-specific variation in response to climate.

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Forecasting phenology: from species variability to community patterns

Cited by 197 publications

References 39 publications

Shifts in flowering phenology reshape a subalpine plant community

Shifts in flowering phenology reshape a subalpine plant community

Community-level phenological response to climate change

A hierarchical perspective on the diversity of butterfly species' responses to weather in the Sierra Nevada Mountains

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