Incorporating plant phenological responses into species distribution models (SDMs) reduces estimates of future species loss and turnover

Anthropogenetic climate change has caused distribution shifts of many species, and species distribution models (SDMs) are central for documenting this relationship. However, most SDMs rarely consider the evolution of climate-sensitive functional traits, such as phenology, which strongly affect species fitness. Using >120,000 herbarium specimens representing 360 plant species across the eastern United States, we developed a novel “phenology-informed” SDM that integrates dynamic phenological responses to changing climates. Compared to standard SDMs, our phenology-informed SDMs forecast lower species habitat loss and less species turnover under climate change. These results suggest that phenotypic plasticity or local adaptation in phenology may help species adjust their ecological niches and persist in their habitats under rapid environmental change. Our findings reveal how phenology variation mediates species distributions and affects regional biodiversity patterns. Our newly developed..., Species selection and phenological data collection
We used digitized specimens from two of the most comprehensive digitized regional floras in the world: the Consortium of Northeastern Herbaria (CNH, https://neherbaria.org /portal/) and the Southeast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections (SERNEC, https://sernecportal.org/portal/). These two online portals include more than six million digitized herbarium specimens from across the eastern United States. Following previously established protocol (Park et al., 2019), we selected species and specimens for analysis when i) there were at least 50 unique collections of the species across space and time in the eastern United States, ii) the specimens included both an exact collection date and at least county-level location information, and iii) the specimens had easily identifiable and quantifiable buds, flowers, and fruits. Applying these criteria yielded 124,847 total herbarium specimens representing 360 species that we used in our mo..., , # Incorporating plant phenological responses into species distribution models (SDMs) reduces estimates of future species loss and turnover

We have submitted raw species phenology (**phenology.total.csv**), growth form (**Growth_form.csv**), geographical location (**grid40km.csv**), species distribution data (**distribution_data.csv**) as well as R script (**RCode.R**)

## File Descriptions

### phenology\_total.csv

* **Species**: Currently valid species scientific name
* **bud**: the number of buds
* **flower**: the number of flowers
* **fruit**: the number of fruits
* **state**: the state in which a specimen was collected
* **longitude**: concrete coordiates where a specimen was collected
* **latitude**: concrete coordiates where a specimen was collected
* **year**: the year in which a specimen was collected
* **month**: the month in which a specimen was collected
* **day**: the day on which a specimen was collected

### growth\_form.csv

* **Species**: Currentl...