Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.
Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Glob Chang Biol. 2019 Jul;25(7):2209-2220. doi: 10.1111/gcb.14642. Epub 2019 May 6.
Temperate plants are at risk of being exposed to late spring freezes. These freeze events-often called false springs-are one of the strongest factors determining temperate plants species range limits and can impose high ecological and economic damage. As climate change may alter the prevalence and severity of false springs, our ability to forecast such events has become more critical, and it has led to a growing body of research. Many false spring studies largely simplify the myriad complexities involved in assessing false spring risks and damage. While these studies have helped advance the field and may provide useful estimates at large scales, studies at the individual to community levels must integrate more complexity for accurate predictions of plant damage from late spring freezes. Here, we review current metrics of false spring, and how, when, and where plants are most at risk of freeze damage. We highlight how life stage, functional group, species differences in morphology and phenology, and regional climatic differences contribute to the damage potential of false springs. More studies aimed at understanding relationships among species tolerance and avoidance strategies, climatic regimes, and the environmental cues that underlie spring phenology would improve predictions at all biological levels. An integrated approach to assessing past and future spring freeze damage would provide novel insights into fundamental plant biology and offer more robust predictions as climate change progresses, which are essential for mitigating the adverse ecological and economic effects of false springs.
温带植物有暴露在晚春冻害下的风险。这些冻害事件——通常被称为假春天——是决定温带植物物种分布范围的最强因素之一，会造成严重的生态和经济损失。随着气候变化可能改变假春天的发生频率和严重程度，我们预测此类事件的能力变得更加重要，这也促使相关研究不断增加。许多假春天的研究在很大程度上简化了评估假春天风险和损害所涉及的众多复杂因素。虽然这些研究有助于推动该领域的发展，并可能在大尺度上提供有用的估计，但在个体到群落层面的研究必须整合更多的复杂性，才能准确预测晚春冻害对植物的损害。在这里，我们回顾了假春天的当前衡量标准，以及植物在何时、何地最容易受到冻害的威胁。我们强调了生命阶段、功能群、形态和物候学上的物种差异，以及区域气候差异如何导致假春天的破坏潜力。更多旨在了解物种耐受性和回避策略、气候模式以及构成春季物候学基础的环境线索之间关系的研究，将提高所有生物层面的预测能力。评估过去和未来春季冻害的综合方法将为植物生物学的基本原理提供新的见解，并在气候变化的背景下提供更稳健的预测，这对于减轻假春天的不利生态和经济影响至关重要。
