Goodyera repens (L.) R. Br. is a slender creeping orchid that inhabits coniferous or, more rarely, broad-leaved woods in the shade or semi-shade of the undergrowth. It presents a wide area of distribution along temperate and boreal regions of the northern hemisphere. Although some orchid guides refer its blooming period as June to September, more detailed works dealing with specific territories indicate that the blooming times occur mainly between July and August (Flora iberica: “VII-VIII”, Flora of the U.S.S.R.: “July-August”, Flora of China: “Jul-Aug”, Flora of North America: “early Jul–early Sep”).
In 1991 we found in the Maestrazgo mountains (Eastern Iberian Range) some populations of this orchid that represented at that time the first records in the Iberian peninsula outside the Pyrenees, extending its southern limit in the peninsula by more than 200 km (FABREGAT & LÓPEZ-UDIAS 1993). Then, populations were in bloom from mid-July to mid-August. In later years, new populations have been found in this environment, and recently (SERRA et al. 2016, FABREGAT et al. 2017) new locations have been encountered in the southern limit of this Maestrazgo area. In those locations, the plants nowadays begin to bloom in mid to late June. After 25 years, this orchid seems to have advanced about a month its blooming time.
Before starting a monitoring protocol to objectively evaluate this process in our region, I would like to know if this phenomenon has been observed in some other territories, especially in the southern edge of its global distribution area.
Yes! Please take a look at the following link for insights.
https://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/pdf/climate_change_threatens_early_flowering_plants_lack_of_snow_458na3_en.pdf
Possibly, but very hard to prove because you need to show climate change and then link it to flowering, an almost impossible task
Hi Carlos,
It is absolutely possible. Please check this paper below.
Sincerely
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256492339_Pollination_mode_predicts_phenological_response_to_climate_change_in_terrestrial_orchids_A_case_study_from_central_Europe?fbclid=IwAR2HEntR8BmL8Um4xcHSpmoOlpYgwiAyslCZFlczCS2Uxj9lTC937nTqFqg
Yes! Please take a look at the following link for insights.
https://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/pdf/climate_change_threatens_early_flowering_plants_lack_of_snow_458na3_en.pdf
Hi @Andrew, thanks for your reply. I think it is not as impossible as it seems. We plan to establish a network of monitoring plots in which we will periodically evaluate the phenological state of the plant, and also the evolution of environmental parameters. We will place a temperature, ambient humidity and soil moisture sensor on each plot. In this way we can correlate the evolution of the flowering period with the evolution of these environmental parameters. The problem is that this requires a lot of time to obtain interpretable results. If we had done this in 1991, when we found the first populations, we would now have 25 years of data that would have given us a lot of information about climate change and its consequences on flora.
Hi Kaan Hürkan, thank you very much for your answer. Your paper already answers this question, and I would very much like to consult it. I would be very grateful if you could send me a copy. We have also evaluated the evolution of the flowering period for Goodyera repens in herbarium sheets, and in part it already showed this as well.
Hi!
The paper is published on this article below. I was not an author on this paper. It is my colleagues' article.
Sincerely
Article Pollination mode predicts phenological response to climate c...
Many thanks for the link, Arvind Singh It is a very good reference on this problem.
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