Dr. Liu Zunchi, Associate Professor at the School of Soil and Water Conservation, together with Professor Fu Yongshuo from Beijing Normal University, has published an invited mini review in Global Change Biology titled “Vegetation phenology shifts under climate change: Cross-season mechanisms and consequences for ecosystem productivity". The paper provides a systematic synthesis of cross-season phenological mechanisms and their effects on ecosystem productivity.

Vegetation phenology—the timing of recurring life-cycle events—has shifted markedly under climate change, with far-reaching consequences for terrestrial ecosystems and the climate system. Yet phenological research has largely focused on discrete events, often overlooking the continuous and seasonally connected nature of vegetation development. Here, the researchers synthesize recent evidence into a cross-season framework in which spring (start of the growing season), peak (timing of maximum greenness/photosynthetic capacity), and autumn (end of the growing season) phenology are treated as dynamically linked phases. Within this framework, spring phenology is governed by chilling-forcing dynamics, which are modulated by contemporary environmental cues, previous-year autumn phenology, and resource status. Peak phenology is primarily driven by early-season development and carbon uptake, both of which are influenced by spring phenology and temperature. Autumn phenology integrates late-season environmental conditions with legacies of earlier development, mediated by carbon source-sink balance and water and nutrient availability. Across these phases, the evidence points to reciprocal coupling between phenology, carbon uptake, and developmental processes: phenological shifts reshape the seasonal trajectory of productivity and growth, and the resulting carbon dynamics feedback to regulate subsequent developmental transitions. This seasonally integrated perspective provides a mechanistic basis for predicting how non-linear, season-specific climate change will reorganize the terrestrial carbon cycle, and calls for phenology models that explicitly represent cross-season linkages.

Dr. Liu Zunchi is the first author, with Beijing Forestry University as the first affiliation, and Professor Fu Yongshuo from Beijing Normal University as the corresponding author. Collaborators include Dr. Wu Zhaofei from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Professor Constantin M. Zohner from the BRANCH Institute in Switzerland, Professor Zhang Yao from Peking University, and Professor Josep Peñuelas from the CREAF research center in Spain. The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the BFU Science and Technology Innovation Program.

Paper link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.71112

Written by Liu Zunchi
Translated by Song He
Edited by Liu Sitong
Reviewed by Yu Yangyang