Data for: Plants with lengthened phenophases increase their dominance under warming in an alpine plant community

Predicting how shifts in plant phenology affect species dominance remains challenging, because plant phenology and species dominance have been largely investigated independently. Moreover, most phenological research has primarily focused on phenological firsts (leaf-out and first flower dates), leading to a lack of representation of phenological lasts (leaf senescence and last flower) and full phenological periods (growing season length and flower duration). Here, we simultaneously investigated the effects of experimental warming on different phenological events of various species and species dominance in an alpine meadow on the Tibetan Plateau. Warming significantly advanced phenological firsts for most species but had variable effects on phenological lasts. As a result, warming tended to extend species’ full phenological periods, although this trend was not significant for all species. Experimental warming reduced community evenness and differentially impacted species dominance. Shifts in full phenological periods, rather than a single shift in phenological firsts or phenological lasts, were associated with changes in species dominance. Species with lengthened full phenological periods under warming increased their dominance. Our results advance the understanding of how altered species-specific phenophases relate to changes in community structure in response to climate change.

预测植物物候变化如何影响物种优势地位仍具有挑战性，这是因为植物物候与物种优势地位的研究长期以来多被独立进行。此外，大多数物候研究主要集中于物候初期（叶萌发和首次开花日期），导致物候末期（叶衰老和最后一次开花）及完整物候周期（生长季节长度和开花持续时间）的代表性不足。在本研究中，我们同时探讨了实验性增温对不同物种物候事件以及青藏高原高山草甸中物种优势地位的影响。增温显著提前了大多数物种的物候初期，但对物候末期的影响则不尽相同。因此，增温倾向于延长物种的完整物候周期，尽管这一趋势并非对所有物种都显著。实验性增温降低了群落均匀度，并对物种优势地位产生了差异化影响。完整物候周期的变化，而非物候初期或末期的单一变化，与物种优势地位的变化相关。在增温条件下，物候周期延长物种的其优势地位得到增强。我们的研究结果深化了对物种特定物候阶段如何与气候变化响应下的群落结构变化相关联的理解。