Scale gaps in landscape phenology: challenges and opportunities

Phenology, or the timing of life history events, can be heterogeneous across biological communities and landscapes and can vary across a wide variety of spatiotemporal scales. Here, we synthesize information from landscape phenology studies across different scales of measurement around a set of core concepts. We highlight why phenology is scale dependent and identify gaps in the spatiotemporal scales of phenological observations and inferences. We discuss the consequences of these gaps and describe opportunities to address the inherent sensitivities of phenological metrics to measurement scale. Although most studies we review and discuss are focused on plants, our work provides a broadly relevant overview of the role of observation scale in landscape phenology and a general approach for measuring and reporting scale dependence.

Automated summary

This article discusses the heterogeneity of phenology across different scales and emphasizes the importance of scale dependence in phenology. It also suggests opportunities to address the sensitivity of phenological metrics to measurement scale. While most studies focus on plants, it provides a general approach for understanding the role of observation scale in landscape phenology.