Crowd-sourced data reveal social-ecological mismatches in phenology driven by climate

Shifts in phenology that are driven by climate change have substantial impacts on ecosystems, but the effects of these ecological shifts on coupled social-ecological systems remain largely unexplored. Using a large database of crowd-sourced photographs from the image-hosting website Flickr, we show that early snow disappearance conditions similar to those expected by the late 21st century cause the seasonal peak of human visitation at Mount Rainier National Park (NP) to become mismatched from the seasonal peak of wildflower displays, a key visitor draw. Our work indicates that these mismatches between social and ecological systems were a product of both visitor behavior and management constraints, and could fundamentally alter visitor experiences in iconic natural areas like Mount Rainier NP. Recent dramatic growth in the volume of georeferenced citizen-based observations and the increased availability of high-resolution climate data will soon make it feasible to examine how climate affects social-ecological mismatches at very large spatial scales.