Shai Tsur, a short wave listener from Oakland, concerns over his Callery pear tree blooming in January due to warmer winter temperatures. This unusual flowering raises questions about climate change's impact on local ecosystems. Richard Primack, a plant ecology professor, discusses phenology—studying timings of biological events such as bird migration and plant blooming. Data show a global trend of earlier flowering due to increased warmth. This pattern exemplifies changes in climate, affecting not just local flora but also global ecosystems and species migration.
"The migration times of birds, when butterflies start flying in the spring, when plants flower, when trees leaf out ... these are all part of phenology."
"Plants are flowering earlier, trees are leafing out earlier...The reason that they're flowering earlier [is] because it's warmer."
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