Spatial and habitat variation in aphid, butterfly, moth and bird phenologies over the last half century

Author
Bell James R.
Botham Marc S.
Henrys Peter A.
Leech David I.
Pearce-Higgins James W.
Shortall Chris R.
Brereton Tom M.
Pickup Jon
Thackeray Stephen J.
Keywords
Abstract

Abstract Global warming has advanced the timing of biological events, potentially leading to disruption across trophic levels. The potential importance of phenological change as a driver of population trends has been suggested. To fully understand the possible impacts, there is a need to quantify the scale of these changes spatially and according to habitat type. We studied the relationship between phenological trends, space and habitat type between 1965 and 2012 using an extensive UK dataset comprising 269 aphid, bird, butterfly and moth species. We modelled phenologies using generalized additive mixed models that included covariates for geographical (latitude, longitude, altitude), temporal (year, season) and habitat terms (woodland, scrub, grassland). Model selection showed that a baseline model with geographical and temporal components explained the variation in phenologies better than either a model in which space and time interacted or a habitat model without spatial terms. This baseline model showed strongly that phenologies shifted progressively earlier over time, that increasing altitude produced later phenologies and that a strong spatial component determined phenological timings, particularly latitude. The seasonal timing of a phenological event, in terms of whether it fell in the first or second half of the year, did not result in substantially different trends for butterflies. For moths, early season phenologies advanced more rapidly than those recorded later. Whilst temporal trends across all habitats resulted in earlier phenologies over time, agricultural habitats produced significantly later phenologies than most other habitats studied, probably because of nonclimatic drivers. A model with a significant habitat-time interaction was the best-fitting model for birds, moths and butterflies, emphasizing that the rates of phenological advance also differ among habitats for these groups. Our results suggest the presence of strong spatial gradients in mean seasonal timing and nonlinear trends towards earlier seasonal timing that varies in form and rate among habitat types.

Year of Publication
2019
Journal
Global Change Biology
Volume
25
Issue
6
Number of Pages
1982-1994,
Date Published
2019/06/01
Type of Article
https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14592
ISBN Number
1354-1013
URL
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14592
Scheme
Research themes
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