Collaborative Research: Spatiotemporal models of phenology: Integrating the effects of climate change on plants and animals

全球气候正在经历温度和降水的变化，这些变化正在改变世界各地物种的丰度和分布。从保护、生态、文化和经济的角度来看，重要的物种可能在未来几十年面临衰落和灭绝。物候，也就是生物事件的发生时间，已经成为物种对全球变暖和气候变化其他方面反应的关键指标。物候学包括植物的开花和开叶日期，鸟类的首次到达日期，以及全年的其他事件。科学家预测气候变化将如何影响物种和生物群落的能力仍然非常有限，特别是在国家和大陆的规模上。该项目的研究人员将利用日本和韩国176个气象站的数据，研究自1953年以来众多动植物物种的全年物候趋势。与来自美国的任何可比数据集相比，这些记录涵盖的物种更多，时间段更长，地点更多，可以用来开发创新的分析方法，可以应用于美国和其他地方的物种。在日本的野外，研究人员将研究生态相互作用，例如植物和传粉者之间的相互作用，以确定对气候变化反应不同的物种之间生态不匹配的可能性。美国研究人员将培训本科生和研究生，并将与来自日本、韩国、中国和欧洲的科学家以及新的美国国家物候学网络合作，从而加强气候变化研究人员之间的国际联系。

The global climate is undergoing changes in temperature and precipitation that are altering the abundance and distribution of species around the world. Species that are important from conservation, ecological, cultural, and economic perspectives may face decline and extinction in coming decades. Phenology, the timing of biological events, has emerged as a key indicator of species response to global warming and other aspects of climate change. Phenology includes the flowering and leafing out dates of plants, first arrival dates of birds, and other events throughout the year. The ability of scientists to predict how climate change will affect species and biological communities remains very limited, especially at the scale of countries and continents. Researchers in this project will study the year-round phenological trends since 1953 of numerous plant and animal species using data from 176 meteorological sites across Japan and South Korea. These records cover more species, a longer time period, and more sites than any comparable data set from the United States, and can be used to develop innovative methods of analysis that can be applied to species in the United States and elsewhere. At field sites in Japan, the researchers will examine ecological interactions, e.g., between plants and pollinators, to determine the potential for ecological mismatches among species with different responses to climate change. The U.S. researchers will train undergraduate and graduate students and will work with scientists from Japan, South Korea, China, and Europe, and the new U.S. National Phenological Network, thereby strengthening international connections among climate change researchers.