Assessing Plant Phenological Patterns in Tropical Brazil 1901–2020

Phenology is a key biological trait of an organism’s success and is one of the best indicators of its response to recent climate change. Plants are among the most well-studied organisms in this regard, but observational data bearing on this topic are largely restricted to species of the northern hemisphere, mostly from ca. the last three decades. Phenological data from tropical latitudes are especially lacking. Recent research has demonstrated that mobilized online herbarium specimens provide important, albeit mostly neglected, information on plant phenology. Here, we use the web tool CrowdCurio to crowdsource phenological data from nearly 35,000 herbarium specimens representing 260 flowering plant species broadly distributed across tropical Brazil. Our results, spanning 120 years and generated from over 1000 crowdsourcers, clarify numerous aspects of tropical plant phenology. First, they reveal that plant reproductive timing is exceptionally diverse across tropical biomes and taxa. Second, they identify that phenological responses to climate are variable across taxa and biomes. Third, among those species with broad latitudinal ranges, populations from more southern latitudes are significantly more phenologically sensitive to precipitation than those from northern populations. Our results are robust to a variety of confounding factors and span large phylogenetic distances and various life histories. These may represent more global trends in the latitudinal gradient of tropical phenological response with myriad potential ecological and evolutionary consequences. This dataset may be used for non-commercial purposes. Please provide the following attribution: Davis, C., Lyra, G., Park, D., Zhang, H., Asprino, R., Maruyama, R., Torquato, D., Cook, B., Xie, J., Ellison, A. 2022. Assessing plant phenological patterns in tropical Brazil 1901–2020. Harvard Forest Data Archive: HF427. Please note that the license we provide does not apply to images linked from the data set. Please check each content provider’s online documentation to see what licenses may be provided and what terms and restrictions they impose.

物候学（Phenology）是决定生物体生存与演化成功的关键生物学性状，亦是反映其对近期气候变化响应的最优指标之一。植物是该研究方向中被探讨最为深入的类群之一，但相关观测数据在很大程度上仅局限于北半球物种，且主要集中于近三十年的观测记录。热带纬度地区的植物物候数据尤为匮乏。
近期研究表明，数字化上线的植物标本馆馆藏标本（herbarium specimens）可为植物物候学研究提供重要参考信息，尽管这类资源在很大程度上仍未得到充分关注与利用。
本研究借助在线工具CrowdCurio，从广泛分布于巴西热带地区、隶属于260个被子植物物种的近35000份植物标本馆馆藏标本中，完成植物物候数据的众包采集。本研究的结果涵盖120年的时间跨度，由超过1000名众包参与者完成标注，厘清了热带植物物候学的诸多关键议题。
其一，研究揭示热带生物群系（biome）与植物类群（taxa）间的植物生殖物候期存在极高的多样性；其二，研究发现不同植物类群与生物群系对气候的物候响应存在显著差异；其三，在纬度分布范围较广的物种中，分布于更南纬度的种群相较于北部种群，对降水的物候敏感性显著更高。
本研究的结果在多种混杂因素下仍保持稳健，且涵盖了较远的系统发育跨度与多样的生活史类型，该结果或可揭示热带物候响应纬度梯度的全球共性趋势，兼具众多潜在的生态学与进化学研究意义。
本数据集可用于非商业用途，请遵循如下引用规范：Davis, C., Lyra, G., Park, D., Zhang, H., Asprino, R., Maruyama, R., Torquato, D., Cook, B., Xie, J., Ellison, A. 2022. Assessing plant phenological patterns in tropical Brazil 1901–2020. Harvard Forest Data Archive: HF427.
请注意，本数据集提供的授权协议不适用于数据集中链接的图像，请查阅各内容提供商的在线文档以确认其适用的授权协议与相关条款限制。