Long-term data reveal widespread phenological change across major U.S. estuarine food webs

Climate change is shifting the timing of organismal life-history events.
Although consequential food-web mismatches can emerge if predators and
prey shift at different rates, research on phenological shifts has
traditionally focused on single trophic levels. Here, we analyzed
>2000 long-term, monthly time series of phytoplankton, zooplankton,
and fish abundance or biomass for the San Francisco, Chesapeake, and
Massachusetts bays. Phenological shifts occurred in over a quarter (28%)
of the combined series across all three estuaries. However, phenological
trends for many (~29%-68%) taxa did not track the changing environment.
While planktonic taxa largely advanced their phenologies, fishes displayed
broad patterns of both advanced and delayed timing of peak abundance.
Overall, these divergent patterns illustrate the potential for
climate-driven trophic mismatches. Our results suggest that even if
signatures of global climate change differ locally, widespread
phenological change has the potential to disrupt estuarine food webs.