Plants in Time

Shifts in plant phenology are among the most dramatic biological responses to climate change and can have substantial ecological impacts. Harnessing the power of digital herbarium collections and community science, we uncover substantial variation in plant reproductive phenology and its sensitivity to climate within and across species. We further examine how this phenological variation may manifest with increasing climate change and alter interactions among species. We demonstrate that phenological responses to climate change will be heterogeneous within communities and across regions, with large amounts of regional variability driven by local adaptation, phenotypic plasticity, and differences in species assemblages. Our work highlights the utility of natural history collections and community science in revealing large-scale patterns within assemblages and across landscapes that ultimately can improve forecasts of climatic change impacts on the structure and function of ecosystems.

Dr. Daniel Park is an Assistant Professor at Purdue University Department of Biological Sciences. Dr. Park's research focuses on elucidating biogeographic and evolutionary mechanisms of biodiversity patterns in the context of global change, notably biological invasions and climate change. Using interdisciplinary approaches across the fields of biogeography, ecology, evolution, and data science, Park's work explores multiple facets of past, present, and future biodiversity to address the grand challenge of mitigating anthropogenic influence on the world's ecosystems.