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Shorter flowering seasons and declining abundance of flower visitors in a warmer Arctic

Nature Climate Change volume 3, pages 759–763 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Advancing phenology in response to global warming has been reported across biomes1,2, raising concerns about the temporal uncoupling of trophic interactions3,4. Concurrently, widely reported flower visitor declines have been linked to resource limitations5. Phenological responses in the Arctic have been shown to outpace responses from lower latitudes and recent studies suggest that differences between such responses for plants and their flower visitors could be particularly pronounced in the Arctic1,6. The evidence for phenological uncoupling is scant because relevant data sets are lacking7 or not available at a relevant spatial scale8. Here, we present evidence of a climate-associated shortening of the flowering season and a concomitant decline in flower visitor abundance based on a long-term, spatially replicated (1996–2009) data set from high-Arctic Greenland. A unique feature of the data set is the spatial and temporal overlap of independent observations of plant and insect phenology. The shortening of the flowering season arose through spatial variation in phenological responses to warming. The shorter flowering seasons may have played a role in the observed decline in flower visitor abundance. Our results demonstrate that the dramatic climatic changes currently taking place in the Arctic are strongly affecting individual species and ecological communities, with implications for trophic interactions.

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Figure 1: Conceptual model of how differential changes in timing of a phenological event among local populations may affect the duration of the event at the landscape scale.
Figure 2: Temporal trends of temperature, duration of the community-wide flowering season and their relationship.
Figure 3: Relationship between plot-specific timing of flowering and community-wide timing of flowering across years.
Figure 4: Interannual variation in flower visitor abundance, plant-flower visitor temporal overlap and relationships between overlap and flower visitor abundance in the following year.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Zackenberg Basic monitoring program, Aarhus University, for providing access to ecosystem monitoring data. E.P. thanks the US National Science Foundation for support. J-M. Olesen and Y. Dupont gave valuable comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Grenåvej 14, DK-8410 Rønde, Denmark

    Toke T. Høye

  2. Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University, C.F. Møllers Allé 8, bldg. 1110, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

    Toke T. Høye, Niels M. Schmidt & Mads C. Forchhammer

  3. Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, 208 Mueller Lab, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

    Eric Post

  4. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, DK-4000 Roskilde, PO Box 358, Denmark

    Niels M. Schmidt & Mads C. Forchhammer

  5. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade, bldg. 1540, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

    Kristian Trøjelsgaard

  6. Greenland Climate Research Centre, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, 3900 Nuuk, Greenland

    Mads C. Forchhammer

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  1. Toke T. Høye
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Contributions

T.T.H. performed the statistical analyses, created the figures and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. E.P., M.C.F., N.M.S. and K.T. collaborated in writing the manuscript. N.M.S. and K.T. collaborated in planning the study, N.M.S. coordinated the field work and K.T. performed the preliminary analyses. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Toke T. Høye.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Høye, T., Post, E., Schmidt, N. et al. Shorter flowering seasons and declining abundance of flower visitors in a warmer Arctic. Nature Clim Change 3, 759–763 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1909

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