Shifts in phenological distributions reshape interaction potential in natural communities

Climate change has changed the phenologies of species worldwide, but it remains unclear how these phenological changes will affect species interactions and the structure of natural communities. Using a novel approach to analyse long‐term data of 66 amphibian species pairs across eight communities, we demonstrate that phenological shifts can significantly alter the interaction potential of coexisting competitors. Importantly, these changes in interaction potential were mediated by non‐uniform, species‐specific shifts in entire phenological distributions and consequently could not be captured by metrics traditionally used to quantify phenological shifts. Ultimately, these non‐uniform shifts in phenological distributions increased the interaction potential for 25% of species pairs (and did not reduce interaction potential for any species pair), altering temporal community structure and potentially increasing interspecific competition. These results demonstrate the potential of phenological...

气候变化已改变全球范围内各物种的物候（phenology）特征，但目前仍无法明确这类物候变化将如何影响物种间相互作用及自然群落的结构。本研究采用全新分析方法，对覆盖8个群落的66对两栖动物（amphibian）物种对的长期监测数据展开分析，结果证实物候偏移（phenological shift）可显著改变共存竞争者间的相互作用潜力。值得注意的是，这类相互作用潜力的变化由全物候分布层面的不均匀、物种特异性物候偏移所介导，因此无法通过传统用于量化物候变化的指标予以捕捉。最终，这类物候分布的不均匀偏移使得25%的物种类对的相互作用潜力得到提升（且未对任何物种类对的相互作用潜力造成削弱），改变了群落的时间结构，并可能加剧种间竞争。本研究结果证实了物候...