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Updated: Jul 27, 2025

A Telemetric, Gravimetric Platform for Real-Time Physiological Phenotyping of Plant–Environment Interactions
Published on: August 5, 2020
Climate warming interacts with other global change drivers to influence plant phenology: A meta-analysis of
Huimin Zhou1, Xueting Min1, Jianghui Chen1
1Zhejiang Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, Center for Global Change and Ecological Forecasting, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
Abstract:
Shifts in plant phenology influence ecosystem structures and functions, yet how multiple global change drivers interact to affect phenology remains elusive. We conducted a meta-analysis of 242 published articles to assess interactions between warming (W) and other global change drivers including nitrogen addition (N), increased precipitation (IP), decreased precipitation (DP) and elevated CO2 (eCO2 ) on multiple phenophases in experimental studies. We show that leaf out and first flowering were most strongly affected by warming, while warming and decreased precipitation were the most pronounced drivers for leaf colouring. Moreover, interactions between warming and other global change drivers were common and both synergistic and antagonistic interactions were observed: interactions W + IP and W + eCO2 were frequently synergistic, whereas interactions W + N and W + DP were mostly antagonistic. These findings demonstrate that global change drivers often affect plant phenology interactively. Incorporating the multitude of interactions into models is crucial for accurately predicting plant responses to global changes.
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