Warmer Temperatures Lengthen Growing Season, Increase Plants’ Vulnerability to Frost

Experimental warming treatments show how peatland forests may respond to future environmental change.

Image courtesy of Victor O. Leshyk

Results from the SPRUCE experiment in northern Minnesota show how experimental warming treatments in a boreal peatland forest resulted in earlier spring green-up by trees and shrubs. A severe spring frost caused extensive damage to the warmed foliage that had lost its winter hardiness. In the control treatments, the vegetation was not damaged by the frost despite temperatures dropping to about 5 degrees Fahrenheit (-15 degrees Celsius).

The Science

By warming mature spruce trees and surrounding plants in containment tents in a Minnesota peat bog, researchers examined what happens when the growing season is extended. They found it makes plants more vulnerable to cold snaps. Trees and shrubs green up earlier in spring and stay green longer in autumn, indicating potential extension of the growing season by up to 3 to 6 weeks by the end of the current century. However, as plants greened up earlier, some also lost their winter hardiness. These plants were exposed to damage when a spring frost hit in early April 2016.

The Impact

Recent warming trends lengthen the growing season in temperate and boreal ecosystems, such as the Ozark Highlands and Alaska’s interior forests. Scientists wondered if the longer growing season trend would be limited by the shorter days (less daylight) in the early spring and late autumn. This study resolves that debate. It shows that with warming of up to +9 degrees Celsius above ambient, vegetation responses to increased temperature were linear and not limited by day length.

Summary

The SPRUCE experiment is applying warming (0 to +9 degrees Celsius above ambient) and carbon dioxide (ambient and elevated) treatments to intact communities of mature vegetation in a boreal black-spruce sphagnum bog in Minnesota (upper Midwest). Digital cameras mounted in each of the 10 experimental plots show that warming treatments linearly extend the period of vegetation activity in both spring and autumn. There was little evidence that the length of the day (photoperiod) limited these phenological shifts. The camera observations are consistent with ground observations of the timing of flowering and growth by a variety of bog plant species. In spring 2016, unusually warm weather in March was followed by extreme cold in early April. Vegetation in the warmest chambers (+6.75, +9.0 degrees Celsius) suffered severe frost damage as the temperature dropped to -3 degrees Celsius, indicating a premature loss of frost hardiness. By comparison, vegetation in the cooler chambers (0, +2.25, +4.5 degrees Celsius) was undamaged, despite experiencing dramatically colder temperatures (up to -15 degrees Celsius). Thus, because phenological transitions—including loss of frost hardiness—appear to be driven by the temperature, rather than cued by photoperiod, vegetation may be exposed to greater risk of frost damage in a warmer world. These experimental results are of particular significance because boreal forests have a circumpolar distribution and play a key role in the global carbon cycle.

Contact

Program Manager
Daniel Stover
Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research, SC-23.1
[email protected]; (301) 903-0289

Principal Investigator
Andrew Richardson
Northern Arizona University
[email protected]; (928) 523-3049

Funding

The Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research supported the research. The National Science Foundation supported PhenoCam.

Publications

A.D. Richardson, K. Hufkens, T. Milliman, D.M. Aubrecht, M.E. Furze, B. Seyednasrollah, M.B. Krassovski, J.M. Latimer, W.R. Nettles, R.R. Heiderman, J.M. Warren, and P.J. Hanson, “Ecosystem warming extends vegetation activity but heightens vulnerability to cold temperatures.” Nature 560, 368 (2018). [DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0399-1]

Related Links

Nature Research article: PhenoCams have an eye on the seasons at the SPRUCE ecosystem warming experiment

Highlight Categories

Program: BER , CESD

Performer: University , DOE Laboratory

Additional: Collaborations , Non-DOE Interagency Collaboration