Guannan Ji, Yalan Peng, Z. J. Li, Shaokang Zhang, Huoxing Zhu, Zhuolin Yang, Meng Lv, Frank Berninger, Qianqian Ma
Abstract Compared with extensive studies on leaf phenology, the effects of climate warming on reproductive phenology, particularly fruiting, in natural woody species remain less well understood. Here we use a national-scale phenological dataset of 2735 in situ observations of flowering and fruiting from 102 woody species across 31 sites in China during 1980–2008 to quantify warming effects on flowering, fruiting and reproductive season length (duration between flowering and fruiting). We found that warming generally advanced flowering and fruiting, but at different rates among species, leading to divergent changes in reproductive season length. Temperature and accumulated forcing during reproductive season were the primary climatic factors: higher temperature was associated with shorter reproductive season through accelerated reproductive development, whereas greater accumulated forcing was associated with longer reproductive season, indicating increased time requirements for fruit maturation under warmer conditions. These findings indicate that woody species exhibit heterogeneous reproductive phenological responses to climate warming.