Rapid and positive responses of plants to lower predictability in precipitation

Current climate change is characterized by an increase in weather variability, which includes altered means, variance and predictability of weather parameters, and which may affect an organism’s ecology and evolution. Few studies experimentally manipulated the variability of weather parameters, and very little is known about effects of changes in the intrinsic predictability of weather parameters on living organisms. Here we experimentally tested effects of differences in intrinsic precipitation-predictability on two herbaceous plants (Onobrychis viciifolia and Papaver rhoeas). Lower precipitation predictability led to phenological advance and to an increase in reproductive success, and population growth. Both species exhibited rapid transgenerational responses in phenology and fitness-related traits across four generations that mitigated most effects of precipitation-predictability on fitness proxies of ancestors. Transgenerational responses appeared to be the result of changes in phen...