Abstract

Ongoing climate change can shift organism phenology in ways that vary depending on species, habitats and climate factors studied. To probe for large-scale patterns in associated phenological change, we use 70,709 observations from six decades of systematic monitoring across the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Among 110 phenological events related to plants, birds, insects, amphibians and fungi, we find a mosaic of change, defying simple predictions of earlier springs, later autumns and stronger changes at higher latitudes and elevations. Site mean temperature emerged as a strong predictor of local phenology, but the magnitude and direction of change varied with trophic level and the relative timing of an event. Beyond temperature-associated variation, we uncover high variation among both sites and years, with some sites being characterized by disproportionately long seasons and others by short ones. Our findings emphasize concerns regarding ecosystem integrity and highlight the difficulty of predicting climate change outcomes.The authors use systematic monitoring across the former USSR to investigate phenological changes across taxa. The long-term mean temperature of a site emerged as a strong predictor of phenological change, with further imprints of trophic level, event timing, site, year and biotic interactions.

Published in

Nature Climate Change
2021, Volume: 11, number: 3, pages: 241-248
Publisher: NATURE RESEARCH

SLU Authors

• Roslin, Tomas

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • University of Helsinki

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts


UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology
Environmental Sciences


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00967-7

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/110776