Accelerating effects of growing-season warming on tree seasonal activities are progressively disappearing

Abstract

The phenological changes induced by climate warming have profound effects on water, energy, and carbon cycling in forest ecosystems. In addition to pre-season warming, growing-season warming may drive tree phenology by altering photosynthetic carbon uptake. It has been reported that the effect of pre-season warming on tree phenology is decreasing. However, temporal change in the effect of growing-season warming on tree phenology is not yet clear. Combining long-term ground observations and remote-sensing data, here we show that spring and autumn phenology were advanced by growing-season warming, while the accelerating effects of growing-season warming on tree phenology were progressively disappearing, manifesting as phenological events converted from being advanced to being delayed, in the temperate deciduous broadleaved forests across the Northern Hemisphere between 1983 and 2014. We further observed that the effect of growing-season warming on photosynthetic productivity showed a synchronized decline over the same period. The responses of phenology and photosynthetic productivity had a strong linear relationship with each other, and both showed significant negative correlations with the elevated temperature and vapor pressure deficit during the growing season. These findings indicate that warming-induced water stress may drive the observed decline in the responses of tree phenology to growing-season warming by decelerating photosynthetic productivity. Our results not only demonstrate a close link between photosynthetic carbon uptake and tree seasonal activities but also provide a physiological perspective of the nonlinear phenological responses to climate warming.