Local-scale adaptation to climate change: The village flower festival

Abstract

Plant tourism, for example to view flower displays or autumn colours, is a worldwide industry worth billions of US dollars annually. Climate change has been modifying the timings of many of these plant events, but there is little evidence of adaptation to meet this challenge. Here I show that a local-scale festival attracting thousands of people annually has advanced its timing by more than 3 wk over 46 yr. This short paper represents one of the first solid pieces of evidence of adaptation in flower tourism. I believe that these events represent a neglected source of data for confirming responses to a changing climate and, worldwide, it is likely that festivals can provide numerous such examples.