Format: ORAL

Daniel Pareja-Bonilla1, Montserrat Arista1*, Leonor P, Cerdeira-Morellato, Pedro L. Ortiz1

1 Departamento de Biología Vegetal y Ecología, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain 2 Instituto de Biociencias, Universidade Estadual Paulista "Júlio de Mesquita Filho", Rio Claro (SP), Brazil

Flowering time plays a key role in the reproductive success of plants. It is subject to natural selection and we now know that climate change is shifting flowering phenologies in the Northern Hemisphere, favouring early flowering. However, due to the scarcity of studies of natural communities with long data series, the traits involved in the response of flowering time to climate change are poorly known, especially non-vegetative traits (reproductive, phenological and phylogenetic traits). In the Mediterranean region, the effects of climate change are stronger than the global average and there is an urgent need to understand how biodiversity will be affected in this area. In this study we investigated how the overall flowering phenology of a species-rich community comprising 270 plant species from the Southwest of the Iberian Peninsula has changed over the last 35 years (1980 and 2020 decades) in response to climate change, and how functional traits conditioned this change. We built models combining vegetative, reproductive and phenological traits (flowering season), as well as phylogenetic information as a covariant. Preliminary results indicate that the advance in the flowering date is generalised across the community and that flowering season plays a significant role in the response of flowering to climate change, with winter/early spring flowering species showing a stronger phenological shift. Our results show that mismatches resulting from changes in the co-flowering neighbourhood may lead to new competitive or facilitative interactions regarding plant reproduction. This study will allow us to predict the phenological response of Mediterranean communities and the reassembly of species according to functional traits, increasing our capacity to design conservation strategies for natural areas in the face of climate change.