Understanding Changes to the Timing of Natural Events (Phenology) for Plants in the Water-Limited Southwest

In many places around the world, spring events, like warming temperatures, are coming earlier and fall events are coming later than they have in the past. These changes have implications for the phenology, or the timing of natural life events (e.g. the timing of plant flowering in Spring or leaves falling in Autumn), of many plant species. However, not all species and regions are changing at the same rate, which can lead to mismatches (e.g. between the emergence of plants and pollinators in early spring). Many interactions in nature depend on timing and, as such, phenology affects nearly all aspects of the environment, including the abundance, distribution, and diversity of organisms, ecosystem services, food webs, even global water and carbon cycles.

 

Phenology is among the best indicators of climate change impacts, in large part because phenological events are some of the most sensitive biological responses to environmental changes. Researchers are rapidly developing datasets, models, and indices that can improve our understanding of changing phenology. However, most indices of phenological change are poorly suited for water-limited ecosystems, and existing models are lacking in their ability to represent phenological change at local scales that are relevant and useful for decision making.

 

This project is a step towards addressing these limitations. The project team aims to use local phenology data and climate information to build new phenology indices and models for the southwestern U.S. that address several significant information gaps, with a specific focus on creating useful and relevant data products and decision-support tools for managers. These models will be used to evaluate variations in historical phenology trends based on time period, plant type, geography, and moisture availability. The team plans to generate a phenology tool that resource managers in the Southwest can use to predict phenology events (e.g. plant green-up) based on a specified climate (historical, future near-term, and long-term). This work will help to ensure that phenological information can be used to inform conservation planning and resource management decisions in the Southwest.