Plant phenology and global climate change: Current progresses and challenges

• Published in: Global change biology Vol. 25; no. 6; pp. 1922 - 1940
• Main Authors: Piao, Shilong, Liu, Qiang, Chen, Anping, Janssens, Ivan A., Fu, Yongshuo, Dai, Junhu, Liu, Lingli, Lian, Xu, Shen, Miaogen, Zhu, Xiaolin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-06-2019
• Subjects: Biogeochemistry; Carbon cycle; Climate change; Climate models; Climate system; climatic feedback; Coloring; Data acquisition; Deceleration; Developmental stages; ecological implications; Ecosystem services; Ecosystems; Environmental changes; Global climate; Global warming; Interactions; Landscape; leaf coloring; leaf unfolding; Leaves; mechanisms and drivers; Modelling; phenological modeling; Phenology; plant phenology; Remote sensing; satellite‐derived phenology; Scaling; Temperature; Trends; Tropical climate; Tropical plants; mechanisms and drivers; phenological modeling; plant phenology; leaf unfolding; ecological implications; leaf coloring; climate change; climatic feedback; satellite-derived phenology
• ISSN: 1354-1013; 1365-2486
• DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14619

Plant phenology, the annually recurring sequence of plant developmental stages, is important for plant functioning and ecosystem services and their biophysical and biogeochemical feedbacks to the climate system. Plant phenology depends on temperature, and the current rapid climate change has revived interest in understanding and modeling the responses of plant phenology to the warming trend and the consequences thereof for ecosystems. Here, we review recent progresses in plant phenology and its interactions with climate change. Focusing on the start (leaf unfolding) and end (leaf coloring) of plant growing seasons, we show that the recent rapid expansion in ground‐ and remote sensing‐ based phenology data acquisition has been highly beneficial and has supported major advances in plant phenology research. Studies using multiple data sources and methods generally agree on the trends of advanced leaf unfolding and delayed leaf coloring due to climate change, yet these trends appear to have decelerated or even reversed in recent years. Our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the plant phenology responses to climate warming is still limited. The interactions between multiple drivers complicate the modeling and prediction of plant phenology changes. Furthermore, changes in plant phenology have important implications for ecosystem carbon cycles and ecosystem feedbacks to climate, yet the quantification of such impacts remains challenging. We suggest that future studies should primarily focus on using new observation tools to improve the understanding of tropical plant phenology, on improving process‐based phenology modeling, and on the scaling of phenology from species to landscape‐level.
This review examines the recent progresses in plant phenology and its interactions with climate change. Over its long history, phenology has grown from an empirical subject of observing and recording the timing of annual natural events for specific species to a comprehensive field that involves expanded observations, experiments, modeling, as well as the ecological consequences and climatic feedbacks of phenological changes. This review also emphasizes the need for future studies on the understanding of tropical plant phenology with new tools, on improving process‐based modeling, and on the scaling of phenology from species level to landscape level.