ESIIL Insights into Macrophenology

Join ESIIL's Macrophenology working group for their EDS Seminar on June 9th at 11 am MT! This talk is part of ESIIL's Working Group Showcase taking place on Tuesdays from 11-11:50 am from May 19 to June 30, 2026 where ESIIL's first cohort of working groups will share the story and legacy of their working groups.

Abstract

Plant phenology — the seasonal timing of leaf-out, budding, flowering, fruiting, and leaf-off — is the most easily observable and well-documented biological response to climate change. Changes in phenology have many implications for ecosystem services relevant to society (e.g., food security, carbon sequestration, seasonal allergies). Often we want to know where and when these seasonal changes in plants occur, which is challenging given their sensitivity to changes in climate. However, little is known about how plant phenology influences a species’ ability to persist in different locations in the face of climate change or how native vs. invasive plants may respond to climate change differently. The ESIIL Macrophenology working group formed in 2024 to tackle these questions by combining several types of phenological data with species distribution data. Here we present one of the studies our group undertook.

While phenological shifts represent a key response to climate change, long-term environmental changes may result in species  shifting their geographic ranges (hereafter ranges) to more favorable conditions. This study aimed to examine the simultaneous effects of climate change on plant phenology and geographic range shifts across North America, with a focus on two questions. First, are there trade-offs between phenological shifts and geographic range shifts across a broad group of taxa spanning woody to herbaceous species and perennials to annuals? Second, what is the influence of latitude, dispersal mode, and species origin (native vs. non-native) on species phenological and range responses? We used flowering data from herbarium specimens and the National Phenological Network to fit historic and current random forest models of plant and flowering occurrences across the contiguous United States. The results of those models and their associated uncertainties were combined into a spatial Bayesian generalized linear model to examine effects of change in range, dispersal mode, species, species origin, and latitude on change in phenology through time. We found significant effects of geographic range change, the interaction of geographic range change and latitude, and species on phenological change. Overall, our results suggest that climate change is reshaping plant phenological tradeoffs in ways that are contingent on inter-specific variation and geography, but not species origin or dispersal mode. We found support for a tradeoff between phenological shifts and geographic range shifts mediated by latitude.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Sydne Record. University of Maine, Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology, Professor of Landscape Conservation. Sydne is a macroecologist whose work seeks to understand the driver of biodiversity across space and time. She received her BS from the University of Puget Sound, PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and had postdoctoral training at Harvard University and Michigan State University.