Tue, Aug 16, 2022: 2:45 PM-3:00 PM
520D
Background/Question/MethodsGlobal climate change has significantly altered the phenology of organisms around the world, however, the magnitude of phenological responses can differ greatly between sites and species. The International Tundra Experiment (ITEX), initiated in the early 1990s, established a common protocol to measure plant phenology in tundra study areas across the globe. Today, this valuable collection of phenology measurements depicts the responses of plants in cold grassland steppe and tundra to experimental and ambient changes in temperature over the past decades. The database contains 150,434 phenology observations of 278 plant species taken at 28 study areas for periods up to 26 years.
Results/ConclusionsObservations from this dataset revealed that green-up and flowering of plants at colder tundra sites is more sensitive to changes in temperature than phenology of plants from warmer tundra sites, and that late-flowering tundra species flower earlier with warmer temperatures than early-flowering species – potentially leading to shorter flowering seasons with predicted warmer summers in the future. Together, these results indicate that temporal overlap in flowering between and within tundra plant populations may increase as the climate warms, possibly altering the potential for pollen transfer and therefore gene flow. This work, and future syntheses involving the tundra phenology database, can be used to inform and refine climate-vegetation models, and predict regions where phenological mismatch between vegetation and pollinators or herbivores will be likely as the climate changes.
Results/ConclusionsObservations from this dataset revealed that green-up and flowering of plants at colder tundra sites is more sensitive to changes in temperature than phenology of plants from warmer tundra sites, and that late-flowering tundra species flower earlier with warmer temperatures than early-flowering species – potentially leading to shorter flowering seasons with predicted warmer summers in the future. Together, these results indicate that temporal overlap in flowering between and within tundra plant populations may increase as the climate warms, possibly altering the potential for pollen transfer and therefore gene flow. This work, and future syntheses involving the tundra phenology database, can be used to inform and refine climate-vegetation models, and predict regions where phenological mismatch between vegetation and pollinators or herbivores will be likely as the climate changes.