Biodiversity buffers the response of spring leaf unfolding to climate warming
Abstract
Understanding the sensitivity of spring leaf-out dates to temperature (S_T) is integral to predicting phenological responses to climate warming and the consequences for global biogeochemical cycles. While variation in S_T has been shown to be influenced by local climate adaptations, the impact of biodiversity remains unknown. Here we combine 393,139 forest inventory plots with satellite-derived S_T across the northern hemisphere during 2001–2022 to show that biodiversity greatly affects spatial variation in S_T and even surpasses the importance of climate variables. High tree diversity significantly weakened S_T, possibly driven by changes in root depth and soil processes. We show that current Earth system models fail to reproduce the observed negative correlation between S_T and biodiversity, with important implications for phenological responses under future pathways. Our results highlight the need to incorporate the buffering effects of biodiversity to better understand the impact of climate warming on spring leaf unfolding and carbon uptake. Show more
Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Nature Climate ChangeVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
NatureSubject
Climate-change mitigation; PhenologyFunding
193646 - Forest growth and carbon balance in a warming world: Predicting the growing season lengths of temperate forests (SNF)
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