Phenological sensitivity to climate across taxa and trophic levels

Citation

Thackeray SJ, Henrys PA, Hemming D, Bell JR, Botham MS, Burthe S, Helaouet P, Johns DG, Jones ID, Leech DI, Mackay EB, Massimino D, Atkinson S, Bacon PJ & Brereton TM (2016) Phenological sensitivity to climate across taxa and trophic levels. Nature, 535 (7611), pp. 241-245. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18608

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).

Keywords
Multidisciplinary

Notes
Additional co-authors: Laurence Carvalho, Tim H Clutton-Brock, Callan Duck, Martin Edwards, J. Malcolm Elliott, Stephen J G Hall, Richard Harrington, James W Pearce-Higgins, Toke T Høye, Loeske E B Kruuk, Josephine M Pemberton, Tim H Sparks, Paul M Thompson, Ian White, Ian J Winfield & Sarah Wanless

Journal
Nature: Volume 535, Issue 7611