The study, led by the University of Oviedo and in which the University of Helsinki and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences have also collaborated, addresses those periodic events that are observed in nature and known as phenology, reported this Wednesday the Asturian academic institution.

The work, published in the journals Nature Climate Change and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of America, points out that, for plants to flourish when their pollinators are close or for birds to reproduce when there is food for their chicks, these species must follow the signs of your environment.

Climate crisis

Researchers have meticulously collected observations of hundreds of phenological events over decades in more than 150 protected areas throughout the region of the former Soviet Union, opening up an unprecedented opportunity to explore responses to climate change in a vast area and in a very long time scale.

The results show great local differences in the way in which species respond to variations from one year to another.

"We have information on very different phenological events of birds, mammals, amphibians, plants, reptiles, ranging from the first song of the chickadee to the appearance of the common toad and the fall of birch leaves", observes the main author of the study, María del Mar Delgado, from the Mixed Biodiversity Research Unit of the University of Oviedo.

What has been observed is a general rigidity in the response of species to variations in climate from one year to another, the researcher points out, pointing out that, in particular, the warmer the year, the greater the desynchronization between the species. phenological events and environmental signals.

In addition to this, it has been observed that there are large differences between stations and sites and that, in the huge region of the former Soviet Union, the speed at which phenological events are changing over time depends on when the event occurs (spring or autumn), the trophic level to which the species belong (plants, herbivores or predators) and if they are found in hot (south) or cold (north) places.

For his part, Professor Tomas Roslin (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences), another of the main authors of this study, explains that the observed mismatch “is the result of the past evolution of the different species to local conditions that limit their capacity to adapt to the new conditions imposed by climate change ”.

Over many decades, in some cases a whole century, numerous people within the scientific field have been collecting data on phenological events in more than 150 protected areas in the former Soviet Union, which have been compiled in an annual report, one for each year and for each protected area.

“For a long time this unique scientific contribution was hidden in the archives. But for the last decade we have been working to mobilize this data with an incredible group of more than 300 colleagues from more than 80 organizations from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan ”, explains Evgeniy Meyke of the University of Helsinki (Finland ), who together with Otso Ovaskainen -from the same university- has coordinated this immense database.