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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Functional Plant Ecology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1476576

Winter climate change mediates the sensitivity of vegetation leaf-out to spring warming in high latitudes of China

Provisionally accepted
Mingyang Chen Mingyang Chen 1Mark Henderson Mark Henderson 2Binhui Liu Binhui Liu 1*Wanying Zhou Wanying Zhou 1Rong Ma Rong Ma 1Weiwei Huang Weiwei Huang 1Zeyu Dou Zeyu Dou 1
  • 1 Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, China
  • 2 Mills College at Northeastern University, Oakland, California, USA, Oakland, California, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Abstract Global warming has significantly altered plant phenology by advancing the timing of leaf emergence, impacting vegetation productivity and adaptability. Winter and spring temperatures have commonly been used to explain spring phenology shifts, but we still lack a solid understanding of the effects of interactions between conditions in different season. This study utilizes NDVI and meteorological data to examine the effects of changes in winter and spring temperatures and precipitation on the start of the vegetation growing season (SOS) at high latitudes of China from 1982 to 2015. We found that SOS in Northeast China, as a whole, showed a weak advancing trend (moving earlier in the year), but with obvious regional differences. Even within the same vegetation type, changes in SOS were faster in the cold north (1.9 days/decade) and the cold and dry northwest (1.6 days/decade) than the regional averages for deciduous needleleaf forests (DNF, 1.2 days/decade) and grasslands (0.6 days/decade). Increases in spring temperatures dominate forest SOS advancement, while grassland SOS is mainly influenced by winter and spring precipitation. Decreases in winter minimum temperature (Tmin) enhance the spring temperature sensitivity of SOS. The way that winter precipitation regulates the spring temperature sensitivity of SOS differs among vegetation types: increasing sensitivity in grasslands but suppressing it in DNF. The moderating effects of winter conditions account for the greatest part of the regional differences in the magnitude of change in SOS. Our findings highlight that, although rising spring temperatures significantly affect SOS, winter Tmin and precipitation are crucial for understanding spatial SOS differences, particularly in cold, arid high-latitude regions. Winter conditions play an essential role in regulating the response of vegetation SOS to spring climate at high latitudes. These results suggest that considering the moderating effect of winter climate can facilitate more accurate predictions of temperature-driven phenological changes under future climate change.

    Keywords: Vegetation1, Spring phenology2, Response efficiency3, Climate Change4, Minimum temperature5, precipitation6

    Received: 06 Aug 2024; Accepted: 12 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Chen, Henderson, Liu, Zhou, Ma, Huang and Dou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Binhui Liu, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.