Springing Forward: Changes in Phenology of Native Plant Species in Southern Oregon Prairies as a Result of Experimental Climate Change
Datum
2017
Autor:innen
Zeitschriftentitel
ISSN der Zeitschrift
Bandtitel
Verlag
University of Oregon
Zusammenfassung
Changes in land use, agriculture, and the introduction of invasive species have left prairies of the Pacific Northwest at risk of exacerbated disturbance as a result of changes in climate. A shift in phenology—the timing of biological events (e.g., flowering)—is one of the projected consequences of climate change for many plant species, which may lead to disruptions in community structure such as mismatches in timing of plant-herbivore and plant-pollinator interactions. Shifts and disruptions among prairie species in the Pacific Northwest as a result of climate change are generally unknown. Thus, we examined timing of flowering and seed set under three experimental climate treatments in Selma, Oregon. Treatments included: a control, a 2.5°C increase in temperature, and a 40% reduction in rainfall to mimic extreme drought. From 20 March to 27 May 2016, we visited the climate plots weekly and recorded the abundance of flowering plants and the number of flowers each plant produced for 15 native grass and forb species. Only three produced sufficient flowers to analyze. Sidalcea malviflora ssp virgata, an endemic perennial forb species, flowered earlier but produced fewer plants and flowers per plant in the heated treatments. Navarretia pubescens and Clarkia purpurea, two annual forb species, trended towards flowering earliest in the heated plots, but this was not statistically significant. Continued data collection over the next several years will enable parameterization of a model to predict these plants’ responses to projected climate change, including their predicted future distributions and their annual growth timeline.
Beschreibung
12 pages
Schlagwörter
Phenology, Climate change, Pacific Northwest, Plants
Zitierform
Kanner, M., McCullough, L., & Nock, K. (2017). Springing Forward: Changes in Phenology of Native Plant Species in Southern Oregon Prairies as a Result of Experimental Climate Change. Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal, 11(1). doi:10.5399/uo/ourj.11.1.5