Phenological divergence between flowering plants and flower-visiting Lepidoptera under climate change across Europe
9 affiliations
- 1State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094, People's Republic of China
- 2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, People's Republic of China
- 3Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3SZ, UK
- 4The Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, People's Republic of China
- 5State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, People's Republic of China
- 6University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, People's Republic of China
- 7Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, IPSL-LSCE CEA CNRS UVSQ, 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- 8CSIC, Global Ecology Unit CREAF-CSIC-UAB, Bellaterra, Barcelona 08193, Catalonia, Spain
- 9CREAF, Cerdanyola del Valles, Barcelona 08193, Catalonia, Spain
Abstract
Climate change is altering life-cycle timing and may disrupt coordinated interactions between flowering plants and flower-visiting insects. Using Global Biodiversity Information Facility observation records from Europe between 2000 and 2024, we compiled a continental-scale phenological dataset covering flowering periods of 707 angiosperm species and adult activity periods of 620 Lepidoptera species. We extracted the 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles and activity-window width and used linear mixed-effects models to analyse spatio-temporal trends. The results showed that plant phenology advanced significantly, with the 10th and 50th percentiles shifting earlier by −0.597 and −0.507 d yr⁻¹, respectively, whereas the 90th percentile showed no significant change; flowering-window width increased by 0.361 d yr⁻¹. By contrast, Lepidoptera phenology advanced evenly across the season, with the 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles shifting by −0.137, −0.153 and −0.155 d yr⁻¹, respectively, while activity-window width showed no significant change. Because flowering plants advanced faster than Lepidoptera in the early and middle season, plant–insect phenological overlap declined at 0.340 d yr⁻¹, indicating increasing mismatch across Europe. Further analyses identified temperature as the dominant driver of phenological advance in both groups, but flowering plants and Lepidoptera differed in their responses to other climatic factors. These results suggest that climate change is weakening phenological synchrony between flowering plants and flower-visiting Lepidoptera, with potential consequences for pollination and ecosystem functioning.
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BibTeX
@article{huang2026phenological,
title = {{Phenological divergence between flowering plants and flower-visiting Lepidoptera under climate change across Europe}},
author = {Yanru Huang and Chaoyang Wu and Wenjiang Huang and Yang Liu and Man Qi and Jie Bai and Yingying Dong and Samuel J. L. Gascoigne and Philippe Ciais and Josep Peñuelas and Rob Salguero-Gomez},
journal = {Proceedings. Biological sciences},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.1098/rspb.2026.1381},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13730798},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Phenological divergence between flowering plants and flower-visiting Lepidoptera under climate change across Europe
AU - Yanru Huang
AU - Chaoyang Wu
AU - Wenjiang Huang
AU - Yang Liu
AU - Man Qi
AU - Jie Bai
AU - Yingying Dong
AU - Samuel J. L. Gascoigne
AU - Philippe Ciais
AU - Josep Peñuelas
AU - Rob Salguero-Gomez
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/04
JO - Proceedings. Biological sciences
DO - 10.1098/rspb.2026.1381
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13730798
AB - Climate change is altering life-cycle timing and may disrupt coordinated interactions between flowering plants and flower-visiting insects. Using Global Biodiversity Information Facility observation records from Europe between 2000 and 2024, we compiled a continental-scale phenological dataset covering flowering periods of 707 angiosperm species and adult activity periods of 620 Lepidoptera species. We extracted the 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles and activity-window width and used linear mixed-effects models to analyse spatio-temporal trends. The results showed that plant phenology advanced significantly, with the 10th and 50th percentiles shifting earlier by −0.597 and −0.507 d yr⁻¹, respectively, whereas the 90th percentile showed no significant change; flowering-window width increased by 0.361 d yr⁻¹. By contrast, Lepidoptera phenology advanced evenly across the season, with the 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles shifting by −0.137, −0.153 and −0.155 d yr⁻¹, respectively, while activity-window width showed no significant change. Because flowering plants advanced faster than Lepidoptera in the early and middle season, plant–insect phenological overlap declined at 0.340 d yr⁻¹, indicating increasing mismatch across Europe. Further analyses identified temperature as the dominant driver of phenological advance in both groups, but flowering plants and Lepidoptera differed in their responses to other climatic factors. These results suggest that climate change is weakening phenological synchrony between flowering plants and flower-visiting Lepidoptera, with potential consequences for pollination and ecosystem functioning.
SN - 0962-8452
SN - 1471-2954
ER -