Fruiting phenology matters

Abstract

Social Impact Statement: In the face of the unprecedented rate of climate change, understanding whether plant species can track favourable climatic conditions is an urgent challenge. Recent independent studies suggest that the timing of fruiting (fruiting phenology) can strongly affect future vegetation dynamics and composition via direct seed dispersal. With comprehensive datasets on fruiting phenology, researchers may predict the impact of climate on the future of forests. Nevertheless, long-term, broad-scale, and taxonomically comprehensive datasets of fruiting phenology are still lacking, leaving us unprepared to understand the consequences of climate change on entire floras. We urge stronger collaboration networks to assemble broader, longer, and more comprehensive fruiting phenology datasets. Summary: Climate change is altering species phenology but still with underrated consequences to their ecology and conservation. For example, the production of ripe fruits and the dispersal of their seeds by frugivores are likely critical for their ability to track suitable growing conditions under global warming. Specifically, recent independent studies suggested that migrant birds and mammals are important to facilitate plant spread towards higher (i.e., cooler) latitudes and higher elevations. Interestingly, these studies coincide that spring-fruiting species will likely be particularly favoured, whereas autumn-fruiting species might be largely dispersed to undesirable (i.e., even hotter) areas. These studies show that the timing of fruit production can have a critical impact on future forest composition as plant communities adapt to warmer, more extreme, and unpredictable climates. Unfortunately, comprehensive datasets on fruiting times are very scarce and often temporary, spatially, and taxonomically restricted (particularly when compared with flowering datasets), strongly hampering our capacity to predict the real impact of climate change on long-term vegetation dynamics. Thus, we advocate for an urgent need for long-term, broad-scale, and taxonomically comprehensive datasets of fruiting phenology, and we point out some potential concrete steps towards this goal.