Freezing in a warming world: spring frost damage increases in a deciduous forest

Carol Augspurger, University of Illinois

April 11, 2011 @ 05:00 pm to 06:00 pm

112 Borland

Event Website

A rare event, such as spring frost, may be of disproportionate ecological and evolutionary importance because it can reduce a plants resource acquisition and act as a selective force through differential growth, survival, and reproduction._ At larger scales, frost damage may affect the demography and evolution of the population, species abundance and spatial pattern within the community, and carbon uptake of the ecosystem._ Present climate change with its combination of warmer spring temperatures and greater temperature fluctuations has brought earlier phenological development and a prediction of greater risk of frost damage to temperature deciduous woody plants._ Phenological observations of woody species for 18 years in an old growth forest in central Illinois are used to identify years with frost damage and to document spatial patterns, life and phenological stage vulnerability, and interspecific variation in damage._ Then, using spring temperature patterns common to all observed frost years as criteria, a 122-yr temperature record (1889-2010) is evaluated to reconstruct those years with some probability of frost damage and to determine if its frequency has risen in recent decades of climate change.

Contact

Dan Grear
ecologyservice@psu.edu