Reproductive phenology is likely to vary spatially with environmental conditions that alter microclimate, in particular temperature. We hypothesized that within the same plant community type, environmental changes produced by recent burning would alter plant phenological patterns and temporal structure of the plant community. Specifically, we predicted accelerated flowering and fruiting dates i...

Plant architecture is commonly defined by the adjacency of organs within the structure and their properties. Few studies consider the effect of endogenous temporal factors, namely phenological factors, on the establishment of plant architecture. This study hypothesized that, in addition to the effect of environmental factors, the observed plant architecture results from both endogenous structur...

late spring frost damage is the main factor that limits apricot production in iran.this research was aimed to evaluate the damage of freezing in two apricot cultivarflowers: ʽʽnasiriʼʼ and ʽʽnori-dirrasʼʼ during spring 2011. reproductive organs of thesecultivars at two phenological stages, popcorn and full bloom, were transferred toprogrammable freezer with temperature touch down from 5°c to -1...

Bush encroachment is a form of land degradation prominent worldwide, but particularly present in semi-arid areas. In this study, we mapped the spatial distribution of the two encroacher species, Acacia mellifera and Acacia reficiens, in Central Namibia, based on their different phenological behavior. We used constrained principal curves to extract a one dimensional gradient of phenological chan...

The factors explaining host-associated differentiation (HAD) have not yet been fully characterized, especially in agricultural systems. It is thought that certain characteristics within a system may increase the probability for HAD to occur. These characteristics include relatively long-standing evolutionary relationships between insects and their host plants, endophagy, and allochrony in host-...

Phenology offers critical insights into the responses of species to climate change; shifts in species' phenologies can result in disruptions to the ecosystem processes and services upon which human livelihood depends. To better detect such shifts, scientists need long-term phenological records covering many taxa and across a broad geographic distribution. To date, phenological observation effor...

Variation in species' responses to abiotic phenological cues under climate change may cause changes in temporal overlap among interacting taxa, with potential demographic consequences. Here, we examine associations between the abiotic environment and plant-pollinator phenological synchrony using a long-term syrphid fly-flowering phenology dataset (1992-2011). Degree-days above freezing, precipi...

Climate change has the potential to alter the phenological synchrony between interacting mutualists, such as plants and their pollinators. However, high levels of biodiversity might buffer the negative effects of species-specific phenological shifts and maintain synchrony at the community level, as predicted by the biodiversity insurance hypothesis. Here, we explore how biodiversity might enhan...