scholarly journals Herbarium specimens can reveal impacts of climate change on plant phenology; a systematic review of methods and applications

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Casey A Jones ◽  
Curtis C Daehler
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Plant Phenology ◽  
Herbarium Specimen ◽  
Effect Of Temperature ◽  
Herbarium Specimens ◽  
Plant Responses ◽  
Grid Data ◽  
Recent Climate ◽  
Over Time

Studies in plant phenology have provided some of the best evidence for large-scale responses to recent climate change. Over the last decade, more than thirty studies have used herbarium specimens to analyze changes in flowering phenology over time. In this review, we summarize the approaches and applications used to date. Reproductive plant phenology has primarily been analyzed using two summary statistics, the mean flowering day of year and first flowering day of year, but mean flowering day has proven to be a more robust statistic. Three types of regression models have been applied to test for changes in phenology; flowering day regressed on year, flowering day regressed on temperature, and temperature regressed on year. Most studies analyzed the effect of temperature by averaging temperatures from three months prior to the date of flowering, but other approaches may be suitable in some cases. On average, published studies have used 55 herbarium specimens per species to characterize changes in phenology over time, but in many cases fewer specimens were used. Geospatial grid data is increasingly being used for determining average temperatures at herbarium specimen collection locations, allowing testing for finer scale correspondence between phenology and climate. Multiple studies have shown that inferences from herbarium specimen data are comparable to findings from systematically collected field observations. Herbarium specimens are expected to become an increasingly important resource for analyzing plant responses to climate change. As temperatures continue to rise globally, there is a need to understand phenological rates of change in response to warming and implications of these changes, especially in tropical environments where phenological studies are thus far generally lacking.

scholarly journals Herbarium specimens can reveal impacts of climate change on plant phenology; a systematic review of methods and applications

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Casey A Jones ◽  
Curtis C Daehler
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Plant Phenology ◽  
Herbarium Specimen ◽  
Effect Of Temperature ◽  
Herbarium Specimens ◽  
Plant Responses ◽  
Grid Data ◽  
Recent Climate ◽  
Over Time

Studies in plant phenology have provided some of the best evidence for large-scale responses to recent climate change. Over the last decade, more than thirty studies have used herbarium specimens to analyze changes in flowering phenology over time. In this review, we summarize the approaches and applications used to date. Reproductive plant phenology has primarily been analyzed using two summary statistics, the mean flowering day of year and first flowering day of year, but mean flowering day has proven to be a more robust statistic. Three types of regression models have been applied to test for changes in phenology; flowering day regressed on year, flowering day regressed on temperature, and temperature regressed on year. Most studies analyzed the effect of temperature by averaging temperatures from three months prior to the date of flowering, but other approaches may be suitable in some cases. On average, published studies have used 55 herbarium specimens per species to characterize changes in phenology over time, but in many cases fewer specimens were used. Geospatial grid data is increasingly being used for determining average temperatures at herbarium specimen collection locations, allowing testing for finer scale correspondence between phenology and climate. Multiple studies have shown that inferences from herbarium specimen data are comparable to findings from systematically collected field observations. Herbarium specimens are expected to become an increasingly important resource for analyzing plant responses to climate change. As temperatures continue to rise globally, there is a need to understand phenological rates of change in response to warming and implications of these changes, especially in tropical environments where phenological studies are thus far generally lacking.

scholarly journals Herbarium specimens can reveal impacts of climate change on plant phenology; a review of methods and applications

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e4576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Casey A. Jones ◽  
Curtis C. Daehler
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Plant Phenology ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Herbarium Specimen ◽  
Effect Of Temperature ◽  
Herbarium Specimens ◽  
Grid Data ◽  
Recent Climate ◽  
Over Time

Studies in plant phenology have provided some of the best evidence for large-scale responses to recent climate change. Over the last decade, more than thirty studies have used herbarium specimens to analyze changes in flowering phenology over time, although studies from tropical environments are thus far generally lacking. In this review, we summarize the approaches and applications used to date. Reproductive plant phenology has primarily been analyzed using two summary statistics, the mean flowering day of year and first-flowering day of year, but mean flowering day has proven to be a more robust statistic. Two types of regression models have been applied to test for associations between flowering, temperature and time: flowering day regressed on year and flowering day regressed on temperature. Most studies analyzed the effect of temperature by averaging temperatures from three months prior to the date of flowering. On average, published studies have used 55 herbarium specimens per species to characterize changes in phenology over time, but in many cases fewer specimens were used. Geospatial grid data are increasingly being used for determining average temperatures at herbarium specimen collection locations, allowing testing for finer scale correspondence between phenology and climate. Multiple studies have shown that inferences from herbarium specimen data are comparable to findings from systematically collected field observations. Understanding phenological responses to climate change is a crucial step towards recognizing implications for higher trophic levels and large-scale ecosystem processes. As herbaria are increasingly being digitized worldwide, more data are becoming available for future studies. As temperatures continue to rise globally, herbarium specimens are expected to become an increasingly important resource for analyzing plant responses to climate change.

scholarly journals Continental-scale patterns of Cecropia reproductive phenology: evidence from herbarium specimens

2011 ◽  
Vol 278 (1717) ◽  
pp. 2437-2445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul-Camilo Zalamea ◽  
François Munoz ◽  
Pablo R. Stevenson ◽  
C. E. Timothy Paine ◽  
Carolina Sarmiento ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Field Survey ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Plant Phenology ◽  
Reproductive Phenology ◽  
Herbarium Specimens ◽  
Climatic Regions ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
Flowering Behaviour

Plant phenology is concerned with the timing of recurring biological events. Though phenology has traditionally been studied using intensive surveys of a local flora, results from such surveys are difficult to generalize to broader spatial scales. In this study, contrastingly, we assembled a continental-scale dataset of herbarium specimens for the emblematic genus of Neotropical pioneer trees, Cecropia , and applied Fourier spectral and cospectral analyses to investigate the reproductive phenology of 35 species. We detected significant annual, sub-annual and continuous patterns, and discuss the variation in patterns within and among climatic regions. Although previous studies have suggested that pioneer species generally produce flowers continually throughout the year, we found that at least one third of Cecropia species are characterized by clear annual flowering behaviour. We further investigated the relationships between phenology and climate seasonality, showing strong associations between phenology and seasonal variations in precipitation and temperature. We also verified our results against field survey data gathered from the literature. Our findings indicate that herbarium material is a reliable resource for use in the investigation of large-scale patterns in plant phenology, offering a promising complement to local intensive field studies.

scholarly journals Assessing Impacts of Climate Change and Human Activities on Streamflow and Sediment Discharge in the Ganjiang River Basin (1964–2013)

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1679 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guo ◽  
Mu ◽  
Hu ◽  
Gao ◽  
Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Water Conservation ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Jiangxi Province ◽  
Sediment Discharge ◽  
Change Environment ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Ganjiang River Basin

National large-scale soil and water conservation controls on the Gangjiang River basin have been documented, but the effect of governance on regional watershed hydrology and how the main driving factors act have not been systematically studied yet. To do this, this study evaluated changing trends and detected transition years for both streamflow and sediment discharge using long-term historical records at seven hydrological stations in the Ganjiang River basin over the past 50 years. The double mass curve (DMC) method was used to quantify the effects of both climate change and human activities on hydrological regime shifts. The results showed that the distributions of precipitation, streamflow, and sediment discharge within a year are extremely uneven and mainly concentrated in the flood season of Jiangxi Province. None of the stations showed significant trends over time for either annual precipitation or streamflow, while the annual sediment discharge at most stations decreased significantly over time. The estimation of sediment discharge via DMC indicated that after the transition years, there were rapid reductions in sediment discharge at all hydrological stations, and the average decline degree of midstream and downstream were much larger than that of upstream. Human activities, especially the increase of vegetation cover and construction of large and medium-sized reservoirs, provided a significantly greater contribution to the reduction of sediment discharge than did precipitation changes. As a case study of river evolution under global change environment, this study could provide scientific basis for the control of soil erosion and the management of water resources in Ganjiang River, as well as for the related research of Poyang Lake and the Yangtze River basin of China.

scholarly journals Phenological responses to climate change based on a hundred years of herbarium collections of tropical Melastomataceae

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. e0251360
Author(s):  
Duane F. Lima ◽  
José H. F. Mello ◽  
Isadora T. Lopes ◽  
Rafaela C. Forzza ◽  
Renato Goldenberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Circular Statistics ◽  
Tropical Species ◽  
Herbarium Specimens ◽  
Phenological Data ◽  
Recent Climate ◽  
Herbarium Collections

Changes in phenological events have been vastly documented in face of recent global climate change. These studies are concentrated on temperate plants, and the responses of tropical species are still little understood, likely due to the lack of long-term phenological records in the tropics. In this case, the use of herbarium specimens to gather phenological data over long periods and wide geographic areas has emerged as a powerful tool. Here, we used four Melastomataceae species endemic to the Brazilian Atlantic Forest to evaluate phenological patterns and alterations as responses to recent climate changes. Phenological data were gathered from Reflora Virtual Herbarium specimens collected between 1920 and 2018, and analyzed with circular statistics applied to the intervals 1920–1979, 1980–1999, and 2000–2018. The effects of temperature range, average temperature, precipitation, and photoperiod on flowering and fruiting of each species were tested using multiple linear regressions. Through circular statistics, we detected changes, mostly delays, in the flowering of Miconia quinquedentata, Pleroma clavatum and P. trichopodum, and in the fruiting of M. acutiflora, P. clavatum and P. trichopodum. We also found that flowering and fruiting occurrence were related to local climatic conditions from months prior to the collections. We found marked phenological variations over the decades and also that these variations are associated to global climate change, adding up to the large body of evidence from higher latitudes. Our results also support herbarium collections as an important source for long-term tropical phenological studies. The lack of consistent patterns of responses among the four species (e.g. fruiting delayed two months in P. clavatum and advanced one month in M. acutiflora) suggests that climate change has unequal effects across tropical forests. This highlights the urgent need for further research to understand and forecast the ecological implications of these changes in global ecosystems processes.

scholarly journals Spatiotemporal variation in leaf size and shape in response to climate

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaoqi Li ◽  
Dongting Zou ◽  
Nawal Shrestha ◽  
Xiaoting Xu ◽  
Qinggang Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Intraspecific Variation ◽  
Leaf Shape ◽  
Leaf Size ◽  
Leaf Length ◽  
Herbarium Specimens ◽  
Size And Shape ◽  
Length Width ◽  
Leaf Size And Shape ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Aims Morphological variation of leaves is a key indicator of plant response to climatic change. Leaf size and shape are associated with carbon, water and energy exchange of plants with their environment. However, whether and how leaf size and shape responded to climate change over the past decades remains poorly studied. Moreover, many studies have only explored inter- but not intraspecific variation in leaf size and shape across space and time. Methods We collected >6000 herbarium specimens spanning 98 years (1910–2008) in China for seven representative dicot species and measured their leaf length and width. We explored geographical patterns and temporal trends in leaf size (i.e. leaf length, leaf width and length × width product) and shape (i.e. length/width ratio), and investigated the effects of changes in precipitation and temperature over time and space on the variation in leaf size and shape. Important Findings After accounting for the effects of sampling time, leaf size decreased with latitude for all species combined, but the relationship varied among species. Leaf size and shape were positively correlated with temperature and precipitation across space. After accounting for the effects of sampling locations, leaf size of all species combined increased with time. Leaf size changes over time were mostly positively correlated with precipitation, whereas leaf shape changes were mostly correlated with temperature. Overall, our results indicate significant spatial and temporal intraspecific variation in leaf size and shape in response to climate. Our study also demonstrates that herbarium specimens collected over a considerable period of time provide a good resource to study the impacts of climate change on plant morphological traits.

scholarly journals Dendroclimatology in Fennoscandia – from past accomplishments to future potential

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. W. Linderholm ◽  
J. A. Björklund ◽  
K. Seftigen ◽  
B. E. Gunnarson ◽  
H. Grudd ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Tree Ring ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Ring Width ◽  
Atmospheric Circulation Patterns ◽  
Northern Fennoscandia ◽  
Finnish Lapland ◽  
Recent Climate ◽  
Tree Ring Data

Abstract. Fennoscandia has a strong tradition in dendrochronology, and its large tracts of boreal forest make the region well suited for the development of tree-ring chronologies that extend back several thousands of years. Two of the world's longest continuous (most tree-ring chronologies are annually resolved) tree-ring width chronologies are found in northern Fennoscandia, with records from Torneträsk and Finnish Lapland covering the last ca. 7500 yr. In addition, several chronologies between coastal Norway and the interior of Finland extend back several centuries. Tree-ring data from Fennoscandia have provided important information on regional climate variability during the mid to late Holocene and have played major roles in the reconstruction of hemispheric and global temperatures. Tree-ring data from the region have also been used to reconstruct large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns, regional precipitation and drought. Such information is imperative when trying to reach better understanding of natural climate change and variability and its forcing mechanisms, and placing recent climate change within a long-term context.

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