Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
Glob Chang Biol. 2019 Nov;25(11):3591-3608. doi: 10.1111/gcb.14759. Epub 2019 Aug 22.
Plant phenology-the timing of cyclic or recurrent biological events in plants-offers insight into the ecology, evolution, and seasonality of plant-mediated ecosystem processes. Traditionally studied phenologies are readily apparent, such as flowering events, germination timing, and season-initiating budbreak. However, a broad range of phenologies that are fundamental to the ecology and evolution of plants, and to global biogeochemical cycles and climate change predictions, have been neglected because they are "cryptic"-that is, hidden from view (e.g., root production) or difficult to distinguish and interpret based on common measurements at typical scales of examination (e.g., leaf turnover in evergreen forests). We illustrate how capturing cryptic phenology can advance scientific understanding with two case studies: wood phenology in a deciduous forest of the northeastern USA and leaf phenology in tropical evergreen forests of Amazonia. Drawing on these case studies and other literature, we argue that conceptualizing and characterizing cryptic plant phenology is needed for understanding and accurate prediction at many scales from organisms to ecosystems. We recommend avenues of empirical and modeling research to accelerate discovery of cryptic phenological patterns, to understand their causes and consequences, and to represent these processes in terrestrial biosphere models.
植物物候学——植物周期性或可再生生物事件的时间安排——为了解植物介导的生态系统过程的生态学、进化和季节性提供了线索。传统上研究的物候学很容易被发现，例如开花事件、发芽时间和季节起始的芽突破。然而，由于“隐蔽性”，即隐藏在视线之外（例如，根系生产）或难以根据常见的测量方法在典型的检查尺度上区分和解释（例如，常绿森林中的叶片更替），许多对植物的生态学和进化以及全球生物地球化学循环和气候变化预测至关重要的物候学被忽视了。我们通过两个案例研究来说明捕捉隐蔽物候学如何能促进科学认识：美国东北部落叶林的木物候学和亚马逊热带常绿林的叶物候学。通过这些案例研究和其他文献，我们认为，从生物体到生态系统的多个尺度上，为了理解和准确预测，需要对隐蔽植物物候学进行概念化和特征化。我们建议通过实证和建模研究来加速发现隐蔽物候模式，了解其原因和后果，并在陆地生物圈模型中代表这些过程。
