Phenology of Drosophila species across a temperate growing season and implications for behavior.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Gleason JM
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6521991 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Climate change has been shown to advance spring phenology, increase the number of insect generations per year (multivoltinism) and increase pathogen infection levels. However, we lack insights into the effects of plant spring phenology and the biotic environment on the preference and performance of multivoltine herbivores and whether such effects extend into the later part of the growing season. To this aim, we used a multifactorial growth chamber experiment to examine the influence of spring phenology on plant pathogen infection, and how the independent and interactive effects of spring phenology and plant pathogen infection affect the preference and performance of multigenerational attackers (the leaf miner Tischeria ekebladella and the aphid Tuberculatus annulatus) on the pedunculate oak in the early, mid and late parts of the plant growing season. Pathogen infection was highest on late phenology plants, irrespective of whether inoculations were conducted in the early, mid or late season. The leaf miner consistently preferred to oviposit on middle and late phenology plants, as well as healthy plants, during all parts of the growing season, whereas we detected an interactive effect between spring phenology and pathogen infection on the performance of the leaf miner. Aphids preferred healthy, late phenology plants during the early season, healthy plants during the mid season, and middle phenology plants during the late season, whereas aphid performance was consistently higher on healthy plants during all parts of the growing season. Our findings highlight that the impact of spring phenology on pathogen infection and the preference and performance of insect herbivores is not restricted to the early season, but that its imprint is still present - and sometimes equally strong - during the peak and end of the growing season. Plant pathogens generally negatively affected herbivore preference and performance, and modulated the effects of spring phenology. We conclude that spring phenology and pathogen infection are two important factors shaping the preference and performance of multigenerational plant attackers, which is particularly relevant given the current advance in spring phenology, pathogen outbreaks and increase in voltinism with climate change.
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Project description:Autumn leaf senescence marks the end of the growing season in temperate ecosystems. Its timing influences a number of ecosystem processes, including carbon, water and nutrient cycling. Climate change is altering leaf senescence phenology and, as those changes continue, it will affect individual woody plants, species and ecosystems. In contrast to spring leaf out times, however, leaf senescence times remain relatively understudied. Variation in the phenology of leaf senescence among species and locations is still poorly understood.Leaf senescence phenology of 1360 deciduous plant species at six temperate botanical gardens in Asia, North America and Europe was recorded in 2012 and 2013. This large data set was used to explore ecological and phylogenetic factors associated with variation in leaf senescence.Leaf senescence dates among species varied by 3 months on average across the six locations. Plant species tended to undergo leaf senescence in the same order in the autumns of both years at each location, but the order of senescence was only weakly correlated across sites. Leaf senescence times were not related to spring leaf out times, were not evolutionarily conserved and were only minimally influenced by growth habit, wood anatomy and percentage colour change or leaf drop. These weak patterns of leaf senescence timing contrast with much stronger leaf out patterns from a previous study.The results suggest that, in contrast to the broader temperature effects that determine leaf out times, leaf senescence times are probably determined by a larger or different suite of local environmental effects, including temperature, soil moisture, frost and wind. Determining the importance of these factors for a wide range of species represents the next challenge for understanding how climate change is affecting the end of the growing season and associated ecosystem processes.
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Project description:BackgroundThe functioning of ecosystems is highly variable through space and time. Climatic and edaphic factors are forcing ecological communities to converge, whereas the diversity of plant assemblages dampens these effects by allowing communities' dynamics to diverge. This study evaluated whether the growing season phenology of wetland plant communities within landscapes is determined by the climatic/edaphic factors of contrasted regions, by the species richness of plant communities, or by the diversity of plant assemblages. From 2013 to 2016, we monitored the phenology and floristic composition of 118 wetland plant communities across five landscapes distributed along a gradient of edaphic and climatic conditions in the Province of Québec, Canada.ResultsThe growing season phenology of wetlands was driven by differences among plant assemblage within landscapes, and not by the species richness of each individual community (< 1% of the explained variation). Variation in the growing season length of wetlands reflected the destabilizing effect of climatic and edaphic factors on green-up dates, which is opposed to the dampening effect of plant assemblage diversity on green-down dates.ConclusionsThe latter dampening effect may be particularly important in the context of increasing anthropogenic activities, which are predicted to impair the ability of wetlands to adapt to fluctuating environmental conditions. Our findings suggest that stakeholders should not necessarily consider local species-poor plant communities of lower conservation value to the global functioning of wetland ecosystems.
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Project description:We explored the inter-individual variability in bud-burst and its potential drivers, in homogeneous mature stands of temperate deciduous trees. Phenological observations of leaves and wood formation were performed weekly from summer 2017 to summer 2018 for pedunculate oak, European beech and silver birch in Belgium. The variability of bud-burst was correlated to previous' year autumn phenology (i.e. the onset of leaf senescence and the cessation of wood formation) and tree size but with important differences among species. In fact, variability of bud-burst was primarily related to onset of leaf senescence, cessation of wood formation and tree height for oak, beech and birch, respectively. The inter-individual variability of onset of leaf senescence was not related to the tree characteristics considered and was much larger than the inter-individual variability in bud-burst. Multi-species multivariate models could explain up to 66% of the bud-burst variability. These findings represent an important advance in our fundamental understanding and modelling of phenology and tree functioning of deciduous tree species.
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Project description:Shifts in the timing of key leaf phenological events including budburst, foliage coloration, and leaf fall have been observed worldwide and are consistent with climate warming. Quantifying changes in growing season length (GSL) because of shifts in both spring and autumn leaf phenology is crucial for modeling annual net ecosystem carbon uptake. However, a lack of long-term autumn phenology datasets has prevented assessment of these growing season level changes. We investigated shifts in growing season length, budburst, foliage coloration, and leaf fall over the past century in seven native hardwood species using a historic leaf phenology dataset collected in Wauseon, OH from 1883-1912 paired with contemporary observations. Using long-term meteorological data, we investigated temperature and precipitation trends over 130 years. Finally, we correlated spring and fall phenophases with monthly temperature and precipitation variables from the twelve months preceding that phenophase using historical meteorological data. We found significant extension of growing season length over the past century in five of the seven study species (ANOVA, p < 0.05) which resulted primarily from delayed foliage coloration rather than from earlier budburst in contrast to the few other studies assessing total GSL change. Our results suggest that most of the leaf phenological studies that investigate only budburst are disregarding crucial information about the end of the growing season that is essential for accurately predicting the effects of climate change in mixed-species temperate deciduous forests.
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