The Impact of Winter and Spring Temperatures on Temperate Tree Budburst Dates: Results from an Experimental Climate Manipulation
Open Access
- 10 October 2012
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Public Library of Science (PLoS) in PLOS ONE
- Vol. 7 (10), e47324
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047324
Abstract
Budburst phenology is a key driver of ecosystem structure and functioning, and it is sensitive to global change. Both cold winter temperatures (chilling) and spring warming (forcing) are important for budburst. Future climate warming is expected to have a contrasting effect on chilling and forcing, and subsequently to have a non-linear effect on budburst timing. To clarify the different effects of warming during chilling and forcing phases of budburst phenology in deciduous trees, (i) we conducted a temperature manipulation experiment, with separate winter and spring warming treatments on well irrigated and fertilized saplings of beech, birch and oak, and (ii) we analyzed the observations with five temperature-based budburst models (Thermal Time model, Parallel model, Sequential model, Alternating model, and Unified model). The results show that both winter warming and spring warming significantly advanced budburst date, with the combination of winter plus spring warming accelerating budburst most. As expected, all three species were more sensitive to spring warming than to winter warming. Although the different chilling requirement, the warming sensitivity was not significantly different among the studied species. Model evaluation showed that both one- and two- phase models (without and with chilling, respectively) are able to accurately predict budburst. For beech, the Sequential model reproduced budburst dates best. For oak and birch, both Sequential model and the Thermal Time model yielded good fit with the data but the latter was slightly better in case of high parameter uncertainty. However, for late-flushing species, the Sequential model is likely be the most appropriate to predict budburst data in a future warmer climate.Keywords
This publication has 42 references indexed in Scilit:
- Assessing the effects of climate change on the phenology of European temperate treesAgricultural and Forest Meteorology, 2011
- Does an extreme drought event alter the response of grassland communities to a changing climate?Environmental and Experimental Botany, 2011
- Bayesian calibration of the Unified budburst model in six temperate tree speciesInternational Journal of Biometeorology, 2011
- Why does phenology drive species distribution?Philosophical Transactions B, 2010
- Warming, Photoperiods, and Tree PhenologyScience, 2010
- Modeling the effects of winter environment on dormancy release of Douglas-firForest Ecology and Management, 2010
- Models of the spring phenology of boreal and temperate trees: is there something missing?Tree Physiology, 2006
- Non-photochemical quenching kinetics during the dark to light transition in relation to the formation of antheraxanthin and zeaxanthinJournal of Theoretical Biology, 2004
- Modeling CO2 and water vapor exchange of a temperate broadleaved forest across hourly to decadal time scalesEcological Modelling, 2001
- A Unified Model for Budburst of TreesJournal of Theoretical Biology, 2000