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Premise:
Although changes in plant phenology are largely attributed to changes in climate, the roles of other factors, such as genetic constraints, competition, and self-compatibility, are underexplored.
Methods:
We compiled >900 herbarium records spanning 117 years for all 8 nominal species of the winter-annual genus Leavenworthia (Brassicaceae...
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This article is a Commentary on Park et al. (2023), 239: 2153–2165.
Changes to flowering phenology are a key response of plants to climate change. However, we know little about how these changes alter temporal patterns of reproductive overlap (i.e. phenological reassembly).
We combined long‐term field (1937–2012) and herbarium records (1850–2017) of 68 species in a flowering plant community in central North America...
Citations
... 2022 was also an outlier for lower flowering-season temperatures (Fig 1C), which could play a role as well. Precipitation amount and variability are frequently associated with shifts in flowering phenology across plant taxa [135][136][137][138]. With ongoing sampling at Catherine Creek, we will be able to test whether the correlation between precipitation and phenological isolation holds across time. ...
Hybridization among taxa impacts a variety of evolutionary processes from adaptation to extinction. We seek to understand both patterns of hybridization across taxa and the evolutionary and ecological forces driving those patterns. To this end, we use whole-genome low-coverage sequencing of 458 wild-grown and 1565 offspring individuals to characterize the structure, stability, and mating dynamics of admixed populations of Mimulus guttatus and Mimulus nasutus across a decade of sampling. In three streams, admixed genomes are common and a M. nasutus organellar haplotype is fixed in M. guttatus, but new hybridization events are rare. Admixture is strongly unidirectional, but each stream has a unique distribution of ancestry proportions. In one stream, three distinct cohorts of admixed ancestry are spatially structured at ~20-50m resolution and stable across years. Mating system provides almost complete isolation of M. nasutus from both M. guttatus and admixed cohorts, and is a partial barrier between admixed and M. guttatus cohorts. Isolation due to phenology is near-complete between M. guttatus and M. nasutus. Phenological isolation is a strong barrier in some years between admixed and M. guttatus cohorts, but a much weaker barrier in other years, providing a potential bridge for gene flow. These fluctuations are associated with differences in water availability across years, supporting a role for climate in mediating the strength of reproductive isolation. Together, mating system and phenology accurately predict fluctuations in assortative mating across years, which we estimate directly using paired maternal and offspring genotypes. Climate-driven fluctuations in reproductive isolation may promote the longer-term stability of a complex mosaic of hybrid ancestry, preventing either complete isolation or complete collapse of species barriers.
... floral constancy; Austin et al., 2019). However, despite flowering phenological shifts being a well-documented response to altered temperature and precipitation regimes (Miller-Rushing & Primack, 2008;Matthews & Mazer, 2016;Bartlett et al., 2023), we know surprisingly little about how these changes affect patterns of heterospecific co-flowering. ...
Changes to flowering phenology are a key response of plants to climate change. However, we know little about how these changes alter temporal patterns of reproductive overlap (i.e. phenological reassembly).
We combined long‐term field (1937–2012) and herbarium records (1850–2017) of 68 species in a flowering plant community in central North America and used a novel application of Bayesian quantile regression to estimate changes to flowering season length, altered richness and composition of co‐flowering assemblages, and whether phenological shifts exhibit seasonal trends.
Across the past century, phenological shifts increased species' flowering durations by 11.5 d on average, which resulted in 94% of species experiencing greater flowering overlap at the community level. Increases to co‐flowering were particularly pronounced in autumn, driven by a greater tendency of late season species to shift the ending of flowering later and to increase flowering duration.
Our results demonstrate that species‐level phenological shifts can result in considerable phenological reassembly and highlight changes to flowering duration as a prominent, yet underappreciated, effect of climate change. The emergence of an autumn co‐flowering mode emphasizes that these effects may be season‐dependent.
... Since C. rubra and C. longifolia [43,46] were reported to be abundantly fruiting in the second half of the 20th century, it can be assumed that the current change is because of climate change. One possible factor is a desynchronisation of flowering phenology and pollinator activity [20,61], but detailed studies of flowering and pollinator activity in different parts of the species' range are needed to confirm this hypothesis. ...
The reproduction of rare and endangered plant species is one of the most important factors determining the stability and survival of their populations, and knowledge of the barriers to successful reproduction is essential for species conservation. Habitat loss and slow reproduction due to low fruit set are usually considered the main threats to Cephalanthera longifolia and C. rubra (Orchidaceae). The aim of this study was to analyse the natural fruit set of these species during three consecutive years in Lithuania in the northern part of the temperate zone of Europe. Six populations of C. longifolia and three populations of C. rubra were studied each year from 2021 to 2023. During the study period, 49.3% to 54.4% of C. longifolia and 40.0% to 54.3% of C. rubra individuals produced no fruit. Over the three-year period, fruit set in individual populations of C. longifolia ranged from 5.2% to 19.5%, whereas fruit set in populations of C. rubra ranged from 4.1% to 18.8%. Significant weak or moderate correlations were found between plant height, inflorescence length and the number of flowers in the inflorescence and fruit set of both species. Flower position in the inflorescence had a significant effect on fruit set in both species, and the fruit set rate of lower flowers was higher than that of upper flowers. Significant but weak correlations were found between the fruit set and most of the environmental factors analysed. The results of this study suggest that the fruit set of C. longifolia and C. rubra is dependent on insect pollination of the flowers, which in turn is affected by habitat conditions.
... In particular, flowering phenology has been well documented as being sensitive to changing climatic conditions (Davis et al., 2023). In certain species, flowering date advances by > 1 week per °C increase in temperature, although interspecific variability exists in the magnitude of phenological shifts and the climatic cues that flowering time responds to (e.g., Hufft et al., 2018;Bartlett et al., 2023). Because flowering is readily observable in many species, the link between flowering phenology and climate change is an ideal topic for introducing students to the ecological impacts of global change, while also demonstrating the relationship between environmental and phenotypic variability. ...
Engaging students in research is increasingly recognized as a valuable pedagogical tool that can augment student learning outcomes. Here, we present an original activity that utilizes research as pedagogy to teach upper-division college students about phenological responses to climate change. By studying phenological responses in multiple species, this activity emphasizes interspecific variability in responses to a changing climate (i.e., that not all species respond in the same way), while demonstrating the relationship between environmental and phenotypic variability. In this activity, students collect data from herbarium specimens of spring ephemerals native to North America and are tasked with formulating and testing hypotheses about how the day of year that a species' flowering occurs (i.e., flowering phenology) has been affected by climate change. To accomplish this, students perform linear regressions using the R programming language-including data exploration and ensuring the dependent variable follows a normal distribution-and subsequently present their results via oral presentation. We taught this activity as a three-unit lab in an upper-division ecology course and observed quantifiable improvement in student learning outcomes. While designed as a three-unit, upper-division lab, this activity can be modified for other educational levels, blocks of time, and/or as a flipped classroom activity. Through this activity , students are provided with the opportunity to learn about the scientific method, biological collections, linear regressions, the R programming language, and scientific communication. Changes to flowering time are one of the most conspicuous effects of climate change, thus presenting an ideal topic for engaging students in biological inquiry.
... Variation in spring precipitation is associated with variation in flowering time among closely related species (47)(48)(49)(50). Indeed, flowering time divergence between the Clarkia taxa in this study is likely driven by adaptive divergence to the onset of late-spring drought: The selfer is a drought avoider and flowers earlier than the outcrosser, which is a drought tolerator (51,52). ...
Introgression is pervasive across the tree of life but varies across taxa, geography, and genomic regions. However, the factors modulating this variation and how they may be affected by global change are not well understood. Here, we used 200 genomes and a 15-y site-specific environmental dataset to investigate the effects of environmental variation and mating system divergence on the magnitude of introgression between a recently diverged outcrosser-selfer pair of annual plants in the genus Clarkia . These sister taxa diverged very recently and subsequently came into secondary sympatry where they form replicated contact zones. Consistent with observations of other outcrosser-selfer pairs, we found that introgression was asymmetric between taxa, with substantially more introgression from the selfer to the outcrosser. This asymmetry was caused by a bias in the direction of initial F1 hybrid formation and subsequent backcrossing. We also found extensive variation in the outcrosser’s admixture proportion among contact zones, which was predicted nearly entirely by interannual variance in spring precipitation. Greater fluctuations in spring precipitation resulted in higher admixture proportions, likely mediated by the effects of spring precipitation on the expression of traits that determine premating reproductive isolation. Climate-driven hybridization dynamics may be particularly affected by global change, potentially reshaping species boundaries and adaptation to novel environments.
... The present study was carried out on strobilus production. However, plant species could give different reactions to these changes (Whipple et al. 2019;Bartlett et al. 2023;Yadav et al. 2023). Temperature had a significant effect on seed production in natural populations of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) (Boydak 1977), and on bud burst in Norway spruce (Picea abies L.) (Partanen et al. 1998) or vegetation period and phonological synchronization. ...
Reproductive characteristics (e.g., pollen, strobili, cones, seeds, and fruit) are one of the main tools in sustainable forestry. However, many biotic (e.g., growth characteristics, species, population, and individual) and abiotic (e.g., edaphic, climatic, geographic, and year) factors can affect these characteristics. In this study, the impact of climatic characteristics, including minimum, maximum, and average temperatures, annual total precipitation, and relative humidity, on female and male strobilus production was examined in three natural populations of Taurus cedar (Cedrus libani A. Rich.) during three consecutive years (2020–2022). For this purpose, fifty trees were sampled randomly and marked in each population to observe strobilus production. Analysis of variance showed that climatic characteristics were similar (p > 0.05) among years and among populations, while female and male strobilus production showed significant (p < 0.01) differences among years, among populations, and among years within populations. In contrast, interactions of population × year were not significant (p > 0.05) for climatic characteristics. Two populations had the highest strobilus production (155.4 and 82.3 for females and 889.4 and 186.1 for males) in 2022. The studied climatic characteristics had no significant (p > 0.05) effects on strobilus production. The results of the study emphasized similar forestry practices in local areas based on climatic conditions.
Babaçu (Attalea pindobassu) is a valuable palm native to the Caatinga, inhabiting the mountains of the Chapada Diamantina, northeastern Brazil. We explored the Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) of the Coxo de Dentro extractivist community regarding babaçu’s flowering and fruiting and the alignment with the phenological pattern observed through monthly monitoring of this palm, from January to December 2021. We investigated the impact of climatic factors on the reproductive phenology of babaçu, considering LEK and monthly phenological monitoring. LEK was examined through phenological calendars developed within focus groups. The reproductive events of the babaçu were found to be continuous, with flowering responding positively to photoperiod and fruiting positively influenced by temperature, consistent with LEK of the palm’s phenology. There were no significant differences in the time intervals of reproductive events between field-monitored phenological observations and LEK. Babaçu extractivists from Coxo de Dentro possess in-depth knowledge about the reproductive phenology of this palm as well as the climatic factors affecting its phenological expression. We suggest that tapping LEK is a promising approach for rapid recognition of tropical plant phenological patterns. In the case of Attalea pindobassu, we recommend that fruit harvesting be concentrated during the fruiting peak periods of January and February.
