Leaf phenology in 22 North American tree species during the 21st century

Recent shifts in phenology are the best documented biological response to current anthropogenic climate change, yet remain poorly understood from a functional point of view. Prevailing analyses are phenomenological and approximate, only correlating temperature records to imprecise records of phenological events. To advance our understanding of phenological responses to climate change, we developed, calibrated, and validated process-based models of leaf unfolding for 22 North American tree species. Using daily meteorological data predicted by two scenarios (A2: 13.21C and B2: 111C) from the HadCM3 GCM, we predicted and compared range-wide shifts of leaf unfolding in the 20th and 21st centuries for each species. Model predictions suggest that climate change will affect leaf phenology in almost all species studied, with an average advancement during the 21st century of 5.0 days in the A2 scenario and 9.2 days in the B2 scenario. Our model also suggests that lack of sufficient chilling temperatures to break bud dormancy will decrease the rate of advancement in leaf unfolding date during the 21st century for many species. Some temperate species may even have years with abnormal budburst due to insufficient chilling. Species fell into two groups based on their sensitivity to climate change: (1) species that consistently had a greater advance in their leaf unfolding date with increasing latitude and (2) species in which the advance in leaf unfolding differed from the center to the northern vs. southern margins of their range. At the interspecific level, we predicted that early-leafing species tended to show a greater advance in leaf unfolding date than late-leafing species; and that species with larger ranges tend to show stronger phenological changes. These predicted changes in phenology have significant implications for the frost susceptibility of species, their interspecific relationships, and their distributional shifts.

[1]  M. D. Schwartz,et al.  Climate change and shifts in spring phenology of three horticultural woody perennials in northeastern USA , 2005, International journal of biometeorology.

[2]  W. Reese,et al.  Atlas of United States Trees. Volume 1. Conifers and Important Hardwoods , 1972 .

[3]  W. Boyer.  Air Temperature, Heat Sums, and Pollen Shedding Phenology of Longleaf Pine , 1973 .

[4]  I. Chuine,et al.  Niche breadth, competitive strength and range size of tree species: a trade-off based framework to understand species distribution. , 2006, Ecology letters.

[5]  R. Ahas,et al.  Changes in European spring phenology , 2002 .

[6]  Corinne Le Quéré,et al.  Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis , 2013 .

[7]  G. Walther,et al.  "Fingerprints" of climate change : adapted behaviour and shifting species ranges , 2001 .

[8]  S. Schneider,et al.  Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants , 2003, Nature.

[9]  Koen Kramer,et al.  Phenotypic plasticity of the phenology of seven European tree species in relation to climatic warming , 1995 .

[10]  I. Leinonen.  A Simulation Model for the Annual Frost Hardiness and Freeze Damage of Scots Pine , 1996 .

[11]  P. Jones,et al.  Representing Twentieth-Century Space-Time Climate Variability. Part II: Development of 1901-96 Monthly Grids of Terrestrial Surface Climate , 2000 .

[12]  Effects of climatic warming on northern trees: Testing the frost damage hypothesis with meteorological data from provenance transfer experiments , 1996 .

[13]  Isabelle Chuine,et al.  Phenology is a major determinant of tree species range , 2001 .

[14]  H. Freeland,et al.  Spring phenology trends in Alberta, Canada: links to ocean temperature , 2000, International journal of biometeorology.

[15]  B. Rathcke,et al.  Phenological Patterns of Terrestrial Plants , 1985 .

[16]  Mark D. Schwartz,et al.  Green-wave phenology , 1998, Nature.

[17]  David R. Anderson,et al.  Information Theory and Log-Likelihood Models: A Basis for Model Selection and Inference , 1998 .

[18]  H. L. Miller,et al.  Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis , 2007 .

[19]  M. Power,et al.  Species Interactions Reverse Grassland Responses to Changing Climate , 2007, Science.

[20]  P. Jones,et al.  REPRESENTING TWENTIETH CENTURY SPACE-TIME CLIMATE VARIABILITY. , 1998 .

[21]  Philippe Ciais,et al.  Modeling climate change effects on the potential production of French plains forests at the sub-regional level. , 2005, Tree physiology.

[22]  David R. Anderson,et al.  Model selection and multimodel inference : a practical information-theoretic approach , 2003 .

[23]  I. Chuine,et al.  Temperature thresholds of shoot elongation in provenances of Pinus contorta , 2001 .

[24]  H. Hänninen,et al.  Models of the spring phenology of boreal and temperate trees: Is there something missing? , 2006, Tree physiology.

[25]  I. Chuine,et al.  A unified model for budburst of trees. , 2000, Journal of theoretical biology.

[26]  Isabelle Chuine,et al.  Sensitivity analysis of the tree distribution model Phenofit to climatic input characteristics: implications for climate impact assessment , 2005 .

[27]  K. Kikuzawa.  Leaf phenology as an optimal strategy for carbon gain in plants , 1995 .

[28]  Richard J. Norby,et al.  Phenological responses in maple to experimental atmospheric warming and CO2 enrichment , 2003 .

[29]  H. Hänninen,et al.  Computations on frost damage to Scots pine under climatic warming in boreal conditions , 1995 .

[30]  John F. B. Mitchell,et al.  The simulation of SST, sea ice extents and ocean heat transports in a version of the Hadley Centre coupled model without flux adjustments , 2000 .

[31]  Heikki Hänninen,et al.  A framework for modelling the annual cycle of trees in boreal and temperate regions , 2007 .

[32]  E. L. Little.  Atlas of United States trees. Volume 3. Minor western hardwoods. , 1978 .

[33]  C. Defila,et al.  Phytophenological trends in the Swiss Alps, 1951-2002 , 2005 .

[34]  K. Kramer,et al.  Modelling comparison to evaluate the importance of phenology and spring frost damage for the effects of climate change on growth of mixed temperate-zone deciduous forests , 1996 .

[35]  S. Oberbauer,et al.  Predicting vegetative bud break in two arctic deciduous shrub species, Salix pulchra and Betula nana , 2000, Oecologia.

[36]  P. Hari,et al.  Predicting spring phenology and frost damage risk of Betula spp. under climatic warming: a comparison of two models. , 2000, Tree physiology.

[37]  Andrew D. Richardson,et al.  Phenology of a northern hardwood forest canopy , 2006 .

[38]  Josep Peñuelas,et al.  A global change‐induced biome shift in the Montseny mountains (NE Spain) , 2003 .

[39]  Isabelle Chuine,et al.  Climatic determinants of budburst seasonality in four temperate‐zone tree species , 1999 .

[40]  C. Tucker,et al.  Increased plant growth in the northern high latitudes from 1981 to 1991 , 1997, Nature.

[41]  K. Kramer.  A modelling analysis of the effects of climatic warming on the probability of spring frost damage to tree species in the Netherlands and Germany , 1994 .

[42]  M. Cannell,et al.  Date of budburst of fifteen tree species in Britain following climatic warming , 1989 .

[43]  J. Peñuelas,et al.  Running to stand still: adaptation and the response of plants to rapid climate change. , 2005, Ecology letters.

[44]  M. Cannell,et al.  Thermal time, chill days and prediction of budburst in Picea sitchensis , 1983 .

[45]  Annette Menzel,et al.  Growing season extended in Europe , 1999, Nature.

[46]  Risto Sarvas,et al.  Investigations on the annual cycle of development of forest trees. II. Autumn dormancy and winter dormancy , 1974 .

[47]  W. B. Critchfield,et al.  Geographic distribution of the pines of the world , 1966 .

[48]  Isabelle Chuine,et al.  Height growth determinants and adaptation to temperature in pines : a case study of Pinus contorta and Pinus monticola , 2006 .

[49]  T. Linkosalo.  Analyses of the spring phenology of boreal trees and its response to climate change , 2000 .

[50]  M. Lechowicz,et al.  Foliage quality changes during canopy development of some northern hardwood trees , 1992, Oecologia.

[51]  V. Pope,et al.  The impact of new physical parametrizations in the Hadley Centre climate model: HadAM3 , 2000 .

[52]  J. Peñuelas,et al.  European phenological response to climate change matches the warming pattern , 2006 .

[53]  I. C. Prentice,et al.  Evaluation of ecosystem dynamics, plant geography and terrestrial carbon cycling in the LPJ dynamic global vegetation model , 2003 .

[54]  Hughes,et al.  Biological consequences of global warming: is the signal already apparent? , 2000, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[55]  H. Hänninen,et al.  Dormancy release of Norway spruce under climatic warming: testing ecophysiological models of bud burst with a whole-tree chamber experiment. , 2007, Tree physiology.

[56]  Stanwyn G. Shetler,et al.  Earlier plant flowering in spring as a response to global warming in the Washington, DC, area , 2001, Biodiversity & Conservation.

[57]  N. Metropolis,et al.  Equation of State Calculations by Fast Computing Machines , 1953, Resonance.

[58]  H. Hänninen.  Does climatic warming increase the risk of frost damage in northern trees , 1991 .

[59]  G. Yohe,et al.  A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems , 2003, Nature.

[60]  M. D. Schwartz.  Phenology: An Integrative Environmental Science , 2003, Tasks for Vegetation Science.

[61]  S. Jäger,et al.  Atmospheric birch (Betula) pollen in Europe: Trends and fluctuations in annual quantities and the starting dates of the seasons , 1995 .

[62]  C. Parmesan.  Ecological and Evolutionary Responses to Recent Climate Change , 2006 .

[63]  M. Lechowicz,et al.  Why Do Temperate Deciduous Trees Leaf Out at Different Times? Adaptation and Ecology of Forest Communities , 1984, The American Naturalist.

[64]  C. Graham,et al.  Niche Conservatism: Integrating Evolution, Ecology, and Conservation Biology , 2005 .

[65]  K. Kikuzawa.  A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Leaf Habit and Leaf Longevity of Trees and Their Geographical Pattern , 1991, The American Naturalist.