Warming shortens flowering seasons of tundra plant communities

• Main Authors: Janet S Prevey, Christian Rixen, Nadja Ruger, Toke T Hoye, Anne D Bjorkman, Isla H Myers-Smith, Sarah C Elmendorf, Isabel W Ashton, Nicoletta Cannone, Chelsea L Chisholm, Karin Clark, Elisabeth J Cooper, Bo Elberling, Anna Maria Fosaa, Greg HR Henry, Robert D Hollister, Ingibjörg Svala Jónsdóttir, Kari Klanderud, Christopher W Kopp, Esther Lévesque, Marguerite Mauritz, Ulf Molau, Susan M Natali, Steven F Oberbauer, Zoe A Panchen, Eric Post, Sabine B Rumpf, Niels Martin Schmidt, Edward Schuur, Philipp R Semenchuk, Jane G Smith, Katharine N Suding, Ørjan Totland, Tiffany Troxler, Susanna Venn, Carl-Henrik Wahren, Jeffrey M Welker, Sonja Wipf
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Agriculture; land and farm management not elsewhere classified; Ecology not elsewhere classified; School of Life and Environmental Sciences; 3103 Ecology; 3199 Other biological sciences; Tundra
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30116075; https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Warming_shortens_flowering_seasons_of_tundra_plant_communities/20781511

Advancing phenology is one of the most visible effects of climate change on plant communities, and has been especially pronounced in temperature-limited tundra ecosystems. However, phenological responses have been shown to differ greatly between species, with some species shifting phenology more than others. We analysed a database of 42,689 tundra plant phe- nological observations to show that warmer temperatures are leading to a contraction of community-level flowering seasons in tundra ecosystems due to a greater advancement in the flowering times of late-flowering species than early-flowering spe- cies. Shorter flowering seasons with a changing climate have the potential to alter trophic interactions in tundra ecosystems. Interestingly, these findings differ from those of warmer ecosystems, where early-flowering species have been found to be more sensitive to temperature change, suggesting that community-level phenological responses to warming can vary greatly between biomes.