Study
Phenological sensitivity to climate across taxa and trophic levels
Thackeray, Stephen J.; Henrys, Peter A.; Hemming, Deborah; Bell, James R.; Botham, Marc S.
Nature, 2016
Analysis of over ten thousand long-term seasonal-event time series from British terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments, estimating how strongly the timing of each event responds to temperature and comparing sensitivity across trophic levels.
- Studied in
- Animalia, Plantae
- Sample size
- 10003 phenological time series from UK terrestrial, freshwater and marine systems
Seasonal events are shifting earlier, and they are not shifting at the same rate. Sensitivity to temperature differs systematically between trophic levels, with primary producers and primary consumers generally advancing faster than secondary consumers — so the interval between a consumer and its food is changing rather than the whole calendar moving together.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Differences in phenological sensitivity across trophic levels imply that asynchrony between interacting species will increase under continued warming.
How NatureHQ reads it
The reason mismatch is a real problem rather than a bookkeeping one is here. If every species advanced by the same number of days, nothing would break. They do not: the plant moves faster than the caterpillar and the caterpillar faster than the bird, and the gap between a chick hatching and the food peak it needs widens each decade. This is also why a single national dataset matters — you cannot see the divergence from any one species.
- British data, so the geographic generalisation is an assumption.
- Sensitivity to temperature is not the same as demonstrated fitness consequences.
- Time series differ in length, method and taxonomic resolution.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Nature PortfolioPublished in a Nature Portfolio journal.
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