Research Article | OPEN ACCESS
Responses of Plants' Phenology to Climate Warming in the Desert Area in Northwestern China
1, 2Zhaofeng Chang, 1, 2Shujuan Zhu, 1, 2Fugui Han, 1, 2Shengnian Zhong and 1, 2Qiangqiang Wang
1Minqin National Station for Desert Steppe Ecosystem Studies, Minqin 733300, P.R. China
2Gansu Desert Control Research Institute, Lanzhou 730070, P.R. China
Advance Journal of Food Science and Technology 2013 4:500-505
Received: January 07, 2013 | Accepted: January 31, 2013 | Published: April 15, 2013
Abstract
With climate warming, plants’ spring phenology has advanced while autumn phenology has delayed. How does the phenology of desert plants respond to climatic variation? To reveal it, this study analyzed the phenological data of 22 desert species growing in the Minqin Desert Plants Botanical Garden located in the typical desert area in northwest China. The data was observed during the year 1974-2009. Results revealed that comparing with the literatures available, the temperature in the study area since 1974 rose more significantly and plants’ growing periods were longer. Both the advance of arbor’s spring phenology and the delay of herb’s autumn phenology were obviously greater than that reported in available literature. The starting date of spring phenolgy advanced markedly. From 1974 to 2009, the starting date of spring phenology, the ending date of autumn phenology and plants’ growing duration experienced 6 stages. The phenological changes in different stages were closely related to temperature variation.
Keywords:
Climate warming, desert plants, minqin, plant phenology, response,
Competing interests
The authors have no competing interests.
Open Access Policy
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Copyright
The authors have no competing interests.
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ISSN (Online): 2042-4876
ISSN (Print): 2042-4868 |
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