Forecasting phenology: Integrating ecology, climatology, and phylogeny to understand plant responses to climate change
Principal Investigators:
Benjamin I. Cook, and Elizabeth M. Wolkovich
The magnitude and direction of plant species responses to climate change has widespread consequences for trophic interactions, ecosystem services, and our ability to predict the shape of future communities. To date, however, research has focused primarily on documenting species responses without developing a detailed understanding of why some species and communities vary with climate and others do not. Combining expertise from ecologists,
phylogeneticists, and climatologists, we will use extensive plant phenology data from experimental and observational... more
The magnitude and direction of plant species responses to climate change has widespread consequences for trophic interactions, ecosystem services, and our ability to predict the shape of future communities. To date, however, research has focused primarily on documenting species responses without developing a detailed understanding of why some species and communities vary with climate and others do not. Combining expertise from ecologists,
phylogeneticists, and climatologists, we will use extensive plant phenology data from experimental and observational studies across North America and Europe to conduct a metaanalysis and develop robust predictors of plant phenology responses and sensitivities to climate
change. Our resulting database of phenological studies, their related climate variables, and phylogenetic trees will be, we believe, the most comprehensive data available to study the relationship between climate change and plant species phenological responses. Our comparison of
experiments to observational studies will test whether short-term, small-scale manipulations of climate can predict the long-term trends seen on global scales, and should improve the design of future climate manipulation experiments. Additionally, our work will develop new approaches for the use of climate metrics in ecology and inform the designs of government data inventories
and citizen science projects.
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Participants and Meetings

Working Group Participants
Activity | Dates | Further Information |
---|---|---|
Working Group | 24th—28th May 2010 | Participant List |
Working Group | 7th—12th December 2010 | Participant List |
Working Group | 2nd—6th May 2011 | Participant List |
Working Group | 29th November—2nd December 2011 | Participant List |
Working Group | 11th—15th December 2012 | Participant List |
Participant Contact Information
Jenica M. Allen | jenica.allen@uconn.edu | University of Connecticut |
Toby R. Ault | tault@email.arizona.edu | University of Arizona |
Julio L. Betancourt | jlbetanc@usgs.gov | US Geological Survey (USGS) |
Kjell Bolmgren | kjell.bolmgren@slu.se | Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences |
Elsa E. Cleland | ecleland@ucsd.edu | University of California, San Diego |
Benjamin I. Cook | bc9z@ldeo.columbia.edu | NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies |
Theresa M. Crimmins | theresam@u.arizona.edu | USA National Phenology Network |
T. Jonathan Davies | j.davies@mcgill.ca | McGill University |
Nathan J.B. Kraft | nkraft@umd.edu | University of British Columbia |
Susan J. Mazer | mazer@lifesci.ucsb.edu | University of California, Santa Barbara |
Gregory J. McCabe | gmccabe@usgs.gov | US Geological Survey (USGS) |
Brian J. McGill | mail@brianmcgill.org | University of Arizona |
Abe Miller-Rushing | abe_miller-rushing@nps.gov | USA National Phenology Network |
Camille Parmesan | parmesan@mail.utexas.edu | University of Texas, Austin |
James Regetz | regetz@gmail.com | University of California, Santa Barbara |
Nicolas Salamin | nicolas.salamin@unil.ch | University of Lausanne |
Mark D. Schwartz | mds@uwm.edu | University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee |
Steven E. Travers | steven.travers@ndsu.edu | North Dakota State University |
Elizabeth M. Wolkovich | e.wolkovich@ubc.ca | University of California, Santa Barbara |
Lesley Lancaster | lesleylancaster@abdn.ac.uk | University of California, Santa Barbara |
Stephanie Pau | spau@fsu.edu | University of California, Santa Barbara |
S. Joseph Wright | wrightj@si.edu | Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute |
Heather Kharouba | kharouba@zoology.ubc.ca | University of British Columbia |
Products: Publications, Reports, Datasets, Presentations, Visualizations
Type | Products of NCEAS Research |
---|---|
Journal Article | Ault, Toby R.; Macalady, Alison K.; Pederson, Gregory T.; Betancourt, Julio L.; Schwartz, Mark D. 2011. Northern Hemisphere modes of variability and the timing of spring in western North America. Journal of Climate. Vol: 24(15). Pages 4003-4014. (Online version) |
Journal Article | Cleland, Elsa E.; Allen, Jenica M.; Crimmins, Theresa M.; Dunne, Jennifer A.; Pau, Stephanie; Travers, Steven E.; Zavaleta, Erika; Wolkovich, Elizabeth M. 2012. Phenological tracking enables positive species responses to climate change. Ecology. Vol: 93. Pages 1765-1771. (Online version) |
Journal Article | Cook, Benjamin I.; Wolkovich, Elizabeth M.; Parmesan, Camille. 2012. Divergent responses to spring and winter warming drive community level flowering trends. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Vol: 109(23). Pages 9000-9005. (Online version) |
Journal Article | Cook, Benjamin I.; Wolkovich, Elizabeth M.; Davies, T. Jonathan; Ault, Toby R.; Betancourt, Julio L.; Allen, Jenica M.; Bolmgren, Kjell; Cleland, Elsa E.; Crimmins, Theresa M.; Kraft, Nathan J.B.; Lancaster, Lesley; Mazer, Susan J.; McCabe, Gregory J.; McGill, Brian J.; Parmesan, Camille; Pau, Stephanie; Regetz, James; Salamin, Nicolas; Schwartz, Mark D.; Travers, Steven E. 2012. Sensitivity of spring phenology to warming across temporal and spatial climate gradients in two independent databases.. Ecosystems. Vol: 15(8). Pages 1283-1294. (Online version) |
Journal Article | Davies, T. Jonathan; Kraft, Nathan J.B.; Salamin, Nicolas; Wolkovich, Elizabeth M. 2012. Incompletely resolved phylogenetic trees inflate estimates of phylogenetic conservatism. Ecology. Vol: 93(2). Pages 242-247. (Online version) |
Journal Article | Davies, T. Jonathan; Wolkovich, Elizabeth M.; Kraft, Nathan J.B.; Salamin, Nicolas; Allen, Jenica M.; Ault, Toby R.; Betancourt, Julio L.; Bolmgren, Kjell; Cleland, Elsa E.; Cook, Benjamin I.; Crimmins, Theresa M.; Mazer, Susan J.; McCabe, Gregory J.; Pau, Stephanie; Regetz, James; Schwartz, Mark D.; Travers, Steven E. 2013. Phylogenetic conservatism in plant phenology. Journal of Ecology. Vol: 101(6). Pages 1520-1530. (Online version) |
Journal Article | Davies, T. Jonathan; Regetz, James; Wolkovich, Elizabeth M.; McGill, Brian J. 2018. Phylogenetically weighted regression: A method for modelling nonâstationarity on evolutionary trees. Global Ecology and Biogeography. (Abstract) (Online version) |
Journal Article | Kharouba, Heather; Ehrlén, Johan; Gelman, Andrew; Bolmgren, Kjell; Allen, Jenica M.; Travers, Steven E.; Wolkovich, Elizabeth M. 2018. Global shifts in the phenological synchrony of species interactions over recent decades. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. (Abstract) (Online version) |
Journal Article | Mazer, Susan J.; Travers, Steven E.; Cook, Benjamin I.; Davies, T. Jonathan; Bolmgren, Kjell; Kraft, Nathan J.B.; Salamin, Nicolas; Inouye, David W. 2013. Flowering date of taxonomic families predicts phenological sensitivity to temperature: Implications for forecasting the effects of climate change on unstudied taxa. American Journal of Botany. Vol: 100. Pages 1381-1397. (Online version) |
Journal Article | McCabe, Gregory J.; Ault, Toby R.; Cook, Benjamin I.; Betancourt, Julio L.; Schwartz, Mark D. 2012. Influences of the El Nino southern oscillation and the pacific decadal oscillation on the timing of the North American spring. International Journal of Climatology. Vol: 32(15). (Online version) |
Journal Article | Pau, Stephanie; Wolkovich, Elizabeth M.; Cook, Benjamin I.; Davies, T. Jonathan; Kraft, Nathan J.B.; Bolmgren, Kjell; Betancourt, Julio L.; Cleland, Elsa E. 2011. Predicting phenology by integrating ecology, evolution and climate science. Global Change Biology. Vol: 17(12). Pages 3633-3643. (Online version) |
Journal Article | Pau, Stephanie; Wolkovich, Elizabeth M.; Cook, Benjamin I.; Nytch, Christopher J.; Regetz, James; Zimmerman, Jess K.; Wright, S. Joseph. 2013. Clouds and temperature drive dynamic changes in tropical flower production. Nature Climate Change. (Online version) |
Data Set | Wolkovich, Elizabeth M. 2011. Phenology literature review. (Online version) |
Data Set | Wolkovich, Elizabeth M. 2012. Network of ecological and climatological timings across regions (NECTAR). (Online version) |
Data Set | Wolkovich, Elizabeth M. 2012. STONE: Synthesis of timings observed in increase experiments. (Online version) |
Journal Article | Wolkovich, Elizabeth M.; Cook, Benjamin I.; Allen, Jenica M.; Crimmins, Theresa M.; Betancourt, Julio L.; Travers, Steven E.; Pau, Stephanie; Regetz, James; Davies, T. Jonathan; Kraft, Nathan J.B.; Ault, Toby R.; Bolmgren, Kjell; Mazer, Susan J.; McCabe, Gregory J.; McGill, Brian J.; Parmesan, Camille; Salamin, Nicolas; Schwartz, Mark D.; Cleland, Elsa E. 2012. Warming experiments underpredict plant phenological responses to climate change. Nature. Vol: 485. Pages 494-497. (Online version) |
Data Set | Wolkovich, Elizabeth M. unknown. Mikesell phenological data from Wauseon, Ohio, USA 1883-1912. (Online version) |
"Forecasting phenology: Integrating ecology, climatology, and phylogeny to understand plant responses to climate change" is project ID: 12574