Northern Plants Maintain a Steady Balance Between Growth and Senescence Despite Climate Change

Northern ecosystems allocate a consistent fraction of time to green-up and senescence phases despite warming climate conditions.

Sciadv.adn2487 F4

CLI is a combined variable including annual mean temperature, precipitation, radiation, and carbon dioxide. Effect of each CLI factor on timings of the start of the growing season (SOS), peak of the growing season (POS), and end of the growing season (EOS) by partial least squares path modeling analysis.

[Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) from Meng, F., et al. "Consistent Time Allocation Fraction to Vegetation Green-Up Versus Senescence Across Northern Ecosystems Despite Recent Climate Change.' Science Advances 10(23), (2024). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adn2487.]

The Science

A team of researchers examined how plants in northern regions split their time between growing and dying back each year, even as the climate warms. Using satellite data, the team found the balance between the two stages—green-up and senescence—has stayed almost the same over the past 20 years. This finding means even though the growing season is getting longer, plants are keeping a steady pace, which suggests plants may have built-in controls to adjust to changing environments.

The Impact

This research shows northern plants maintain a stable balance between growing and dying back, even as the climate changes. This discovery challenges previous ideas that climate change would disrupt the timing of plant life cycles. Understanding how plants naturally regulate their growth could help scientists predict how ecosystems will respond to future climate shifts. This insight also opens new doors for studying how plants can adapt to environmental changes, which is crucial for managing forests, crops, and natural resources in a warming world.

Summary

This study explores how plants in northern ecosystems allocate time between two important stages in their yearly cycle: green-up (growth) and senescence (dying back). As climate change continues to extend the length of the growing season, researchers were unsure whether plants were spending more time growing or if this extended season was spread evenly across their life cycle. Using satellite data collected between 2001 and 2020, the team found the ratio of time plants spend on green-up versus senescence has remained remarkably consistent despite the warming climate. This pattern held true across more than 83% of northern ecosystems.

Researchers tested two possible explanations: plants would adjust their time allocation in response to climate shifts or maintain a stable balance between these stages. Findings strongly support the latter hypothesis, which suggests northern plants have built-in biological mechanisms that regulate their life cycle, regardless of climate-driven changes in growing season length. These insights could help scientists predict how ecosystems will function in a warmer world, contributing to better forest and land management strategies.

Principal Investigator

Anping Chen
Colorado State University
[email protected]

Co-Principal Investigator

Jiafu Mao
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
[email protected]

Program Manager

Daniel Stover
U.S. Department of Energy, Biological and Environmental Research (SC-33)
Environmental System Science
[email protected]

Funding

This research was supported by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Science Scientific Focus Area funded by the Biological and Environmental Research program within the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is supported by DOE’s Office of Science under contract no. DE-AC05-00OR22725.

References

Meng, F., et al. "Consistent Time Allocation Fraction to Vegetation Green-Up Versus Senescence Across Northern Ecosystems Despite Recent Climate Change." Science Advances 10 (23), (2024). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adn2487.