Waiting for the snow to melt…
Alpine ecosystems are disassembling and reassembling due to climate change. The phenology of alpine plants has shifted, but empirical evidence for how spatial clustering patterns could impact this shift is lacking. This study investigated the phenology of spatially clustered versus isolated alpine plants in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, using linear models that considered co-variables such as plant size, snowmelt timing, and topography. A total of three focal species (Senecio crassulus, Lupinus argenteus, and Ivesia gordonii) with ca. 20 individuals per species were surveyed twice-weekly throughout July and August of 2025. We found that different aspects of phenology were affected by different variables. In 1 general, phenology shifts earlier due to snowmelt timing and shifts later due to the clustering effect. Natural history observations of ant behavior and a survey of the surrounding plant community supplement the understanding of the long-term Mt. Baldy research site.
Knowledge graph centered on Alpine plants of Mt. Baldy: modeling phenology and with 65 nodes and 85 connections. Top connected: The effects of phenological mismatches on demograp, Ligusticum porteri, Delphinium, Spruce, phenological mismatch.
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