A new phenological metric for use in pheno-climatic models: A case study using herbarium specimens of Streptanthus tortuosus

Natalie L.Rossington Love, Isaac W. Park, Susan J. Mazer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Premise: Herbarium specimens have been used to detect climate-induced shifts in flowering time by using the day of year of collection (DOY) as a proxy for first or peak flowering date. Variation among herbarium sheets in their phenological status, however, undermines the assumption that DOY accurately represents any particular phenophase. Ignoring this variation can reduce the explanatory power of pheno-climatic models (PCMs) designed to predict the effects of climate on flowering date. Methods: Here we present a protocol for the phenological scoring of imaged herbarium specimens using an ImageJ plugin, and we introduce a quantitative metric of a specimen's phenological status, the phenological index (PI), which we use in PCMs to control for phenological variation among specimens of Streptanthus tortuosus (Brassicaceeae) when testing for the effects of climate on DOY. We demonstrate that including PI as an independent variable improves model fit. Results: Including PI in PCMs increased the model R2 relative to PCMs that excluded PI; regression coefficients for climatic parameters, however, remained constant. Discussion: Our protocol provides a simple, quantitative phenological metric for any observed plant. Including PI in PCMs increases R2 and enables predictions of the DOY of any phenophase under any specified climatic conditions.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere11276
JournalApplications in Plant Sciences
Volume7
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2019

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
  • Plant Science

Keywords

  • climate change
  • herbarium
  • herbarium specimens
  • pheno-climatic models
  • phenological index
  • phenology

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