Temperate plants are at risk of being exposed to late spring freezes. These freeze events-often called false springs-are one of the strongest factors determining temperate plants species range limits and can impose high ecological and economic damage. As climate change may alter the prevalence and severity of false springs, our ability to forecast such events has become more critical, and it has led to a growing body of research. Many false spring studies largely simplify the myriad complexities involved in assessing false spring risks and damage. While these studies have helped advance the field and may provide useful estimates at large scales, studies at the individual to community levels must integrate more complexity for accurate predictions of plant damage from late spring freezes. Here, we review current metrics of false spring, and how, when, and where plants are most at risk of freeze damage. We highlight how life stage, functional group, species differences in morphology and phenology, and regional climatic differences contribute to the damage potential of false springs. More studies aimed at understanding relationships among species tolerance and avoidance strategies, climatic regimes, and the environmental cues that underlie spring phenology would improve predictions at all biological levels. An integrated approach to assessing past and future spring freeze damage would provide novel insights into fundamental plant biology and offer more robust predictions as climate change progresses, which are essential for mitigating the adverse ecological and economic effects of false springs.
1.Harvard Univ, Arnold Arboretum, 1300 Ctr St, Boston, MA 02115 USA 2.Harvard Univ, Organism & Evolutionary Biol, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA 3.NASA, Goddard Inst Space Studies, New York, NY 10025 USA 4.INRA, French Natl Inst Agr Res, US1116 AgroClim, Avignon, France 5.Univ British Columbia, Fac Forestry, Forest & Conservat Sci, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Recommended Citation:
Chamberlain, Catherine J.,Cook, Benjamin I.,de Cortazar-Atauri, Inaki Garcia,et al. Rethinking false spring risk[J]. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY,2019-01-01,25(7):2209-2220