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Spatiotemporal changes in the bud-burst date of herbaceous plants in Inner Mongolia grassland

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Abstract

Phenological modeling is not only important for the projection of future changes of certain phenophases but also crucial for systematically studying the spatiotemporal patterns of plant phenology. Based on ground phenological observations, we used two existing tem-perature-based models and 12 modified models with consideration of precipitation or soil moisture to simulate the bud-burst date (BBD) of four common herbaceous plants—Xanthium sibiricum, Plantago asiatica, Iris lactea and Taraxacum mongolicum—in temperate grasslands in Inner Mongolia. The results showed that (1) increase in temperature promoted the BBD of all species. However, effects of precipitation and soil moisture on BBD varied among species. (2) The modified models predicted the BBD of herbaceous plants with R2 ranging from 0.17 to 0.41 and RMSE ranging from 9.03 to 11.97 days, better than classical thermal models. (3) The spatiotemporal pattern of BBD during 1980–2015 showed that species with later BBD, e.g. X. sibiricum (mean: day of year 135.30) exhibited an evidently larger spatial difference in BBD (standard deviation: 13.88 days) than the other species. Our findings suggest that influences of temperature and water conditions need to be considered simultaneously in predicting the phenological response of herbaceous plants to climate change.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing, 100101, China

    Zexing Tao, Junhu Dai, Huanjiong Wang, Wenjie Huang & Quansheng Ge

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Wenjie Huang

  3. College of Life Sciences, Chifeng University, Chifeng, 024000, Inner Mongolia, China

    Wenjie Huang

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  1. Zexing Tao
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  2. Junhu Dai
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  3. Huanjiong Wang
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  4. Wenjie Huang
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  5. Quansheng Ge
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Correspondence to Junhu Dai.

Additional information

Foundation: National Key R&D Program of China, No.2018YFA0606102; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.41771056, No.41901014

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Tao, Z., Dai, J., Wang, H. et al. Spatiotemporal changes in the bud-burst date of herbaceous plants in Inner Mongolia grassland. J. Geogr. Sci. 29, 2122–2138 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-019-1708-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-019-1708-9

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