Greater temperature sensitivity of plant phenology at colder sites:implications for convergence across northern latitudes

Warmer temperatures are accelerating the phenology of organisms around the world. Temperature sensitivity of phenology might be greater in colder, higher latitude sites than in warmer regions, in part because small changes in temperature constitute greater relative changes in thermal balance at cold...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Global Change Biology
Main Authors: Prevey, Janet, Vellend, Mark, Ruger, Nadja, Hollister, Robert D., Bjorkman, Anne D., Myers-Smith, Isla H., Elmendorf, Sarah C., Clark, Karin, Cooper, Elisabeth J., Elberling, Bo, Fosaa, Anna Maria, Henry, Gregory H. R., Hoye, Toke T., Jonsdottir, Ingibjorg S., Klanderud, Kari, Lévesque, Esther, Mauritz, Marguerite, Molau, Ulf, Natali, Susan M., Oberbauer, Steven F., Panchen, Zoe A., Post, Eric, Rumpf, Sabine B., Schmidt, Niels M., Schuur, Edward A.G., Semenchuk, Phillip R., Troxler, Tiffany, Welker, Jeffrey M., Rixen, Christian
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2017
Subjects:
Arctic
Cassiope tetragona
climate change
climatic gradient
flowering
International Tundra Experiment
latitude
tundra
SIMULATED ENVIRONMENTAL-CHANGE
RECENT CLIMATE-CHANGE
SPECIES RANGE SHIFTS
GROWING-SEASON
GENE FLOW
ECOTYPIC DIFFERENTIATION
REPRODUCTIVE SUCCESS
GROWTH-RESPONSES
DRYAS-OCTOPETALA
Climate change
Dryas octopetala
Tundra
Online Access:https://pure.au.dk/portal/en/publications/446f6897-42e4-427d-8d42-b28b12681230
https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13619
http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85012068022&partnerID=8YFLogxK
Description
Summary:Warmer temperatures are accelerating the phenology of organisms around the world. Temperature sensitivity of phenology might be greater in colder, higher latitude sites than in warmer regions, in part because small changes in temperature constitute greater relative changes in thermal balance at colder sites. To test this hypothesis, we examined up to 20 years of phenology data for 47 tundra plant species at 18 high-latitude sites along a climatic gradient. Across all species, the timing of leaf emergence and flowering was more sensitive to a given increase in summer temperature at colder than warmer high-latitude locations. A similar pattern was seen over time for the flowering phenology of a widespread species, Cassiope tetragona. These are among the first results highlighting differential phenological responses of plants across a climatic gradient and suggest the possibility of convergence in flowering times and therefore an increase in gene flow across latitudes as the climate warms.

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