Contrasting responses of forest phenological guilds to complex floodplain change

Understanding the seasonal dynamics of the forest herb layer and the factors that influence it is essential for predicting how the forest ecosystem, including mutualistic interactions, will respond to global change. However, to date, no research has investigated how understorey phenological guilds respond to major environmental threats and forest interventions. We showed the marked changes in the phenological structure of floodplain forest plant communities over half a century at a multi-regional scale in Central Europe. Unlike previous studies focusing on individual species' responses to climate change, we examined shifts in species richness, frequency, and abundance between phenological guilds within the plant community. We examined the effects of temporal variation in climate, hydrology, soil conditions, and canopy structure, and assessed the effects of no-intervention and intervention management on phenological guild responses. Our results show a significant loss of local species ri..., , , # Contrasting responses of forest phenological guilds to complex floodplain change

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1vhhmgr2c](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1vhhmgr2c)

In total, we collected 28 explanatory variables that are assumed to have a significant effect on the abundance and richness of the herbaceous layer in floodplain forests and divided them into the categories of climatic, hydrological, and soil conditions, and forest canopy structure. Most of the factors were represented by the differences in their values between the current and historical samples (hereafter referred to as Δ). Changes in climatic conditions and hydrological regimes were calculated using the summary statistic (mean) of the year of sampling and the ten-year values (eleven years in total) of the variable before sampling to remove potential bias from a season of unusual conditions. Most variables therefore provide information on absolute changes in environmental conditions between these two periods. Differences...