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First published online September 17, 2009; doi:10.3732/ajb.0800411 American Journal of Botany 96: 1821-1829 (2009) © 2009 Botanical Society of America, Inc.

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Variation in the impact of climate change on flowering phenology and abundance: An examination of two pairs of closely related wildflower species¹

² Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, P.O. Box 519, Crested Butte, Colorado 81224 USA ³ Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-4415 USA

ABSTRACT

Variability in plant phenological responses to climate change is likely to lead to changes in many ecological relationships as the climate continues to change. We used a 34-yr record of flowering times and flower abundance for four species (two Delphinium [Ranunculaceae] species and two Mertensia [Boraginaceae] species) from a subalpine plant community near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory to test the hypothesis that the phenologies of early-flowering species change more rapidly in response to climatological and other abiotic cues than do late-flowering species, a pattern previously found in plant communities in North America and Europe. We also explored a related hypothesis, that flower abundance of late-flowering species is more responsive to changes in climate than that of early-flowering species. The Delphinium species did not support these hypotheses, but the Mertensia species did. The difference between the peak flowering times of the early and late Mertensia species is expanding, leading to a period of diminished resources for pollinators that specialize on this genus. Mertensia ciliata populations are already severely declining in our study area, possibly as a result of earlier snowmelt. Together, these results show that the reported differences between early- and late-flowering species may be widespread, but they are not ubiquitous.

Key Words: Boraginaceae • climate change • Delphinium • flower abundance • flowering phenology • frost • global warming • Mertensia • Ranunculaceae • Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory • snowmelt

Received for publication 7 December 2008. Accepted for publication 24 June 2009.

FOOTNOTES

¹ The authors thank L. Bacon, C. Bean, K. Darrow, J. Forrest, T. Høye, M. Price, R. Primack, G. Pyke, F. Saavedra, and an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments on this manuscript. Funding and research assistance for this project was provided by NSF (dissertation improvement grant, grants DEB 75-15422, DEB 78-07784, BSR 81-08387, DEB 94-08382, IBN-98-14509, and DEB-0238331), Sigma Xi, an NDEA Title IV predoctoral fellowship, and assistance from Earthwatch and its Research Corps. Research facilities and access to study sites were provided by Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, whose NSF grant DBI 0420910 supported collection of high-resolution GPS data, J. Boynton assisted with the GPS data collection. J. Tuttle has provided access to study sites since 1973. B. Barr provided snowpack data.

⁴ Author for correspondence (e-mail: abe{at}wildlife.org); present address: USA National Phenology Network, 1955 East 6^th Street, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA; and The Wildlife Society, 5410 Grosvenor Lane, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA

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