title: Phenological patterns of flowering across biogeographical regions of Europe.
abstract: Long-term changes of plant phenological phases determined by complex interactions of environmental factors are in the focus of recent climate impact research. There is a lack of studies on the comparison of biogeographical regions in Europe in terms of plant responses to climate. We examined the flowering phenology of plant species to identify the spatio-temporal patterns in their responses to environmental variables over the period 1970-2010. Data were collected from 12 countries along a 3000-km-long, North-South transect from northern to eastern Central Europe.Biogeographical regions of Europe were covered from Finland to Macedonia. Robust statistical methods were used to determine the most influential factors driving the changes of the beginning of flowering dates. Significant species-specific advancements in plant flowering onsets within the Continental (3 to 8.3 days), Alpine (2 to 3.8 days) and by highest magnitude in the Boreal biogeographical regions (2.2 to 9.6 days per decades) were found, while less pronounced responses were detected in the Pannonian and Mediterranean regions. While most of the other studies only use mean temperature in the models, we show that also the distribution of minimum and maximum temperatures are reasonable to consider as explanatory variable. Not just local (e.g. temperature) but large scale (e.g. North Atlantic Oscillation) climate factors, as well as altitude and latitude play significant role in the timing of flowering across biogeographical regions of Europe. Our analysis gave evidences that species show a delay in the timing of flowering with an increase in latitude (between the geographical coordinates of 40.9 and 67.9), and an advance with changing climate. The woody species (black locust and small-leaved lime) showed stronger advancements in their timing of flowering than the herbaceous species (dandelion, lily of the valley). In later decades (1991-2010), more pronounced phenological change was detected than during the earlier years (1970-1990), which indicates the increased influence of human induced higher spring temperatures in the late twentieth century.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Systematics, Ecology and Theoretical Biology, Eötvös Loránd University, 1117, Budapest, Hungary. barbara.a.templ@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9391-5888
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Templ
authors.affiliation: Institute of Data Analysis and Process Design, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, 8401, Winterthur, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Templ
authors.affiliation: Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics, Vienna University of Technology, 1040, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Filzmoser
authors.affiliation: Centre for Climate Change, University Rovira i Virgili, 43500, Tortosa, Spain.
authors.forename: Annamária
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lehoczky
authors.affiliation: Voke Branch of the Lithuanian Research, Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, 02232, Vilnius, Lithuania.
authors.forename: Eugenija
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bakšienè
authors.affiliation: Statistics Austria, 1110, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fleck
authors.affiliation: Climate Service Centre, Finnish Meteorological Institute, 00101, Helsinki, Finnland.
authors.forename: Hilppa
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gregow
authors.affiliation: Sector for Applied Meteorology, Federal Hydrometeorological Institute of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 71000, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
authors.forename: Sabina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hodzic
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Latvia, 1010, Riga, Latvia.
authors.forename: Gunta
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kalvane
authors.affiliation: Natural Resources and Bioproduction, Natural Resources Institute Finland, 00790, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Eero
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kubin
authors.affiliation: Institute of Ecology and Earth Science, University of Tartu, 51014, Tartu, Estonia.
authors.forename: Vello
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Palm
authors.affiliation: Voke Branch of the Lithuanian Research, Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, 02232, Vilnius, Lithuania.
authors.forename: Danuta
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Romanovskaja
authors.affiliation: Meteorological Research and Development Division, Meteorological and Hydrological Service, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Višnja
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Vucˇetic
authors.affiliation: Agrometeorological Department, Environmental Agency of the Republic of Slovenia, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Žust
authors.affiliation: European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity, French National Museum of Natural History, 75231, Paris, France.|Institute of Ecology and Botany, MTA Centre for Ecological Research, 2163, Vácrátót, Hungary.
authors.forename: Bálint
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Czúcz
mesh_terms: D005060:Europe; D035264:Flowers / Q000502:physiology*; D019684:Magnoliopsida / Q000502:physiology*; D012621:Seasons; D013696:Temperature
keywords: Beginning of flowering; Biogeographical regions; Climate change; Europe; Robust regression; Shifting trend