Different currencies for calculating resource phenology result in opposite inferences about trophic mismatches ...

• Main Authors: Versluijs, Tom, Zhemchuzhnikov, Mikhail, Kutcherov, Dmitry, Roslin, Tomas, Martin Schmidt, Niels, Van Gils, Jan, Reneerkens, Jeroen
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2022
• Subjects: FOS Biological sciences; allometry; ecological interactions; Phenology; Phenological mismatch; Terrestrial ecology; Trophic interactions; Arctic; Calidris alba; Climate change; Greenland; Zackenberg; Sanderling
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3bk3j9kp3; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.3bk3j9kp3

Shifts in phenology are among the key responses of organisms to climate change. When rates of phenological change differ between interacting species they may result in phenological asynchrony. Studies have found conflicting patterns concerning the direction and magnitude of changes in synchrony, which have been attributed to biological factors. A hitherto overlooked additional explanation is differences in the currency used to quantify resource phenology, such as abundance and biomass. Studying an insectivorous bird, Sanderling, and its prey, we show that the median date of cumulative arthropod biomass occurred, on average, 6.9 days after the median date of cumulative arthropod abundance. In some years this difference could be as large as 21 days. For 23 years, hatch dates of Sanderlings became less synchronized with the median date of arthropod abundance, but more synchronized with the median date of arthropod biomass. The currency-specific trends can be explained by our finding that mean biomass per ... : To evaluate how our choice of currency for prey phenology will affect our perception of a phenological mismatch, we introduce a model system: the breeding phenology of an arctic shorebird, Sanderling (Calidris alba), and the phenology of their arthropod prey. We derive measures of arthropod phenology in terms of abundance and biomass (with the latter inferred using allometric length-biomass regressions). For this purpose, we analyzed 23 years of arthropod and bird data collected at Zackenberg. In addition, we use a simple simulation to assess how rates of phenological change are affected by the choice of currency for prey phenology. Since 1996 arthropod communities have been sampled throughout the snow-free season at Zackenberg, northeast Greenland (74°28' N, 20°34' W). To calculate annual seasonal trends in arthropod biomass at Zackenberg we first calculated the average number of specimens caught per taxonomic group per day per trap. This we did for each day of the time window during which a trap was ...