Abstract
AbstractPlant phenology research has gained increasing attention because of the sensitivity of phenology to climate change and its consequences for ecosystem function. Recent technological development has made it possible to gather invaluable data at a variety of spatial and ecological scales. Despite our ability to observe phenological change at multiple scales, the mechanistic basis of phenology is still not well understood. Integration of multiple disciplines, including ecology, evolutionary biology, climate science, and remote sensing, with long‐term monitoring data across multiple spatial scales is needed to advance understanding of phenology. We review the mechanisms and major drivers of plant phenology, including temperature, photoperiod, and winter chilling, as well as other factors such as competition, resource limitation, and genetics. Shifts in plant phenology have significant consequences on ecosystem productivity, carbon cycling, competition, food webs, and other ecosystem functions and services. We summarize recent advances in observation techniques across multiple spatial scales, including digital repeat photography, other complementary optical measurements, and solar‐induced fluorescence, to assess our capability to address the importance of these scale‐dependent drivers. Then, we review phenology models as an important component of earth system modeling. We find that the lack of species‐level knowledge and observation data leads to difficulties in the development of vegetation phenology models at ecosystem or community scales. Finally, we recommend further research to advance understanding of the mechanisms governing phenology and the standardization of phenology observation methods across networks. With the opportunity for “big data” collection for plant phenology, we envision a breakthrough in process‐based phenology modeling.
Highlights
Plant phenology, the study of recurring events in the life cycle of plants, has gained increasing public and scientific attention over the last few decades
We summarize recent advances in observation techniques across multiple spatial scales, including digital repeat photography, other complementary optical measurements, and solar-induced fluorescence, to assess our capability to address the importance of these scale-d ependent drivers
We find that the lack of species-level knowledge and observation data leads to difficulties in the development of vegetation phenology models at ecosystem or community scales
Summary
The study of recurring events in the life cycle of plants, has gained increasing public and scientific attention over the last few decades. Even though we may use the same model structure for ecosystem-s cale phenology as the species-s cale (taking the chilling- forcing model for example), there are still several challenges, including selecting an aggregated response type, threshold temperatures above or below which forcing or chilling takes place, time periods for calculating the status of chilling and forcing, temperature data to be used (i.e., daily mean, maximum, minimum, or daytime mean temperature), and critical status of chilling and forcing It is more complicated if we consider different responses to the same environmental factor among various species and multiple environmental factors and if the species composition of a community evolves with long-term climate change. In monitoring methods and cumulative phenology data from long-term research networks are paving the way for developing vegetation phenology models at large scales as a critical component of earth system models (Basler 2016)
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