Assessment of climate change pattern in the Pauri Garhwal of the Western Himalayan Region: based on climate parameters and perceptions of forest-dependent communities.

This study assessed the climate change in Pauri district, Uttarakhand, India, a region highly vulnerable to climate change with potentially high loss of livelihoods and lives. The scale of change in the district's climate was analyzed using meteorological station data (1901-2000) and grid data (1985-2015). Perceptions of climate change among forest-dependent communities in three altitude zones (< 1200 m asl (zone A); 1200-1800 m asl (zone B), and > 1800 m asl (zone C)) in the study region were surveyed with respect to 14 climate-specific indicators. Annual mean, maximum, and minimum temperature of seasonal data indicated increasing trends except monsoon. Percentage cloud cover showed an increase, of approximately 3%, while diurnal temperature displayed decreasing trends. Rainfall in the district showed a decreasing trend, with more than 50% of years 1985-2015 receiving less rainfall than the annual average. More than 90% of respondents in zones A and B, and around 65-70% respondents in zone C, reported changes in climate parameters. These findings confirm the long-term observable changes in climate in the region and demonstrate the utility of station data, grid data, and surveys of local communities' perceptions when analyzing climate change. The analysis provided important clues about the nature of climate changes in the district. The results can be used to reduce the gap between bottom-up understanding and top-down policies and to formulate precautionary and ongoing site-specific adaptation practices for communities in different altitude zones in the study region, leading to effective and efficient mitigation of climate change impacts.

Geographic conditions impact the relationship between plant phenology and phylogeny.

Plant phenology is influenced by a combined effect of phylogeny and climate, although it is yet unclear how these two variables work together to change phenology. We synthesized 107 previously published studies to examine whether phenological changes were impacted by both phylogeny and climate changes in various geographical settings globally. Phenological observation data from 52,463 plant species at 71 sites worldwide revealed that 90 % of phenological records showed phylogenetic conservation. i.e., closely related species exhibited similar phenology. To explore the significant and non-significant phylogenetic conservation between plant phenophases, our dataset comprises 5,47,000 observation records from the four main phenophases (leaf bud, leaf, flower, and fruit) from 52,453 plant species aggregated together. Three-dimensional geographical distribution (altitude, latitude, and longitude) data analysis revealed that plant phenology may exhibit phylogenetic signals at finer special scales (optimal environmental conditions) that vanish in high altitude and latitude regions. Additionally, climatic sensitivity analysis suggested that phylogenetic signals were associated with plant phenophases and were stronger in the regions of ideal temperature (7-18 °C) and photoperiod (10-14 h) and weaker in harsh climatic conditions. These results show that phylogenetic conservation in plant phenological traits is frequently influenced by the interaction of harsh climatic conditions and geographical ranges. This meta-analysis enhances our knowledge of predicting species responses over geographic gradients under varied climatic conditions.