Phenological sensitivity to climate across taxa and trophic levels
Abstract
Differences in phenological responses to climate change among species can desynchronise ecological interactions and thereby threaten ecosystem function. To assess these threats, we must quantify the relative impact of climate change on species at different trophic levels. Here, we apply a Climate Sensitivity Profile approach to 10,003 terrestrial and aquatic phenological data sets, spatially matched to temperature and precipitation data, to quantify variation in climate sensitivity. The direction, magnitude and timing of climate sensitivity varied markedly among organisms within taxonomic and trophic groups. Despite this variability, we detected systematic variation in the direction and magnitude of phenological climate sensitivity. Secondary consumers showed consistently lower climate sensitivity than other groups. We used mid-century climate change projections to estimate that the timing of phenological events could change more for primary consumers than for species in other trophic levels (6.2 versus 2.5–2.9 days earlier on average), with substantial taxonomic variation (1.1–14.8 days earlier on average).
Citation
Thackeray , S J , Henrys , P A , Hemming , D , Bell , J R , Botham , M S , Burthe , S , Helaouet , P , Johns , D G , Jones , I D , Leech , D I , Mackay , E B , Massimino , D , Atkinson , S , Bacon , P J , Brereton , T M , Carvalho , L , Clutton-Brock , T H , Duck , C , Edwards , M , Elliott , J M , Hall , S J G , Harrington , R , Pearce-Higgins , J W , Høye , T T , Kruuk , L E B , Pemberton , J M , Sparks , T H , Thompson , P M , White , I , Winfield , I J & Wanless , S 2016 , ' Phenological sensitivity to climate across taxa and trophic levels ' , Nature , vol. 535 , no. 7611 , pp. 241-245 . https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18608
Publication
Nature
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0028-0836Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2016, Macmillan Publishers Ltd, part of Springer Nature. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at www.nature.com / https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature18608
Description
This work was funded by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) grant NE/J02080X/1. The Rothamsted Insect Survey (RIS) is a National Capability strategically funded by BBSRC.Collections
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