A 250-year index of first flowering dates and its response to temperature changes

Widespread concerns about global biodiversity loss have led to a growing demand for indices of biodiversity status. Today, climate change is among the most serious threats to global biodiversity. Although many studies have revealed phenological responses to climate change, no long-term community-lev...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences Biological sciences, 2010-08, Vol.277 (1693), p.2451-2457
Main Authors: Amano, Tatsuya, Smithers, Richard J., Sparks, Tim H., Sutherland, William J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
2010 Target
Biodiversity
Climate change
Climate Change - history
Climate change adaptation
First Flowering
Flowering
Flowers - growth & development
Global Warming
Hierarchical Model
History, 18th Century
History, 19th Century
History, 20th Century
Indicator
Materials
Modeling
Phenology
Plant Development
Plants
Species
Species Specificity
Temperature
Time Factors
United Kingdom
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Summary:Widespread concerns about global biodiversity loss have led to a growing demand for indices of biodiversity status. Today, climate change is among the most serious threats to global biodiversity. Although many studies have revealed phenological responses to climate change, no long-term community-level indices have been developed. We derived a 250-year index of first flowering dates for 405 plant species in the UK for assessing the impact of climate change on plant communities. The estimated community-level index in the most recent 25 years was 2.2–12.7 days earlier than any other consecutive 25-year period since 1760. The index was closely correlated with February–April mean Central England Temperature, with flowering 5.0 days earlier for every 1°C increase in temperature. The index was relatively sensitive to the number of species, not records per species, included in the model. Our results demonstrate how multi-species, multiple-site phenological events can be integrated to obtain indices showing trends for each species and across species. This index should play an important role in monitoring the impact of climate change on biodiversity. Furthermore, this approach can be extended to incorporate data from other taxa and countries for evaluating cross-taxa and cross-country phenological responses to climate change.
ISSN:0962-8452
1471-2945
1471-2954
DOI:10.1098/rspb.2010.0291