Bringing together expertise to better understand the effects of climate change on perennial and woody species

To study the effects of climate change on plant communities, you still need to have a good thermometer to hand. In other words, a measurement tool which allows everyone to understand the variations in biological functioning over time. “Phenology focuses on observing events, the responses of a plant to its environment, especially the seasonal cycle of climate. By studying the phenology of perennial plants, we have a natural thermometer for changes in the climate,” explains Iñaki García de Cortázar-Atauri of INRAE’s Agroclim Service Unit in Avignon, one of the three leaders of the PERPHECLIM project - Evolution of the phenology of perennial and woody species in the face of climate change, alongside Jean-Marc Audergon (Joint Research Unit for Fruit and Vegetable Genetics and Breeding, known by its French acronym GAFL) and Patrick Bertuzzi (Agroclim).

Speaking the same language

Vines, fruit trees and forests have therefore become biomarkers, allowing researchers to better understand the interactions between plants and their environment.

“The Observatoire des Saisons, created by CNRS, was already working on this issue, particularly with regard to forest species. So, under PERPHECLIM, we brought together the study of anthropized systems and worked on developing an INRAE network on a par with the Observatoire des Saisons,” he adds. The objectives were ambitious: to homogenise experimental protocols, to structure a community and to disseminate the results of their work to the field. “Previously, the observation of veraison, in other words the stage at which grapes begin to ripen, was based solely on a change of colour in the grape,” explains Iñaki. “Now the observation is done by touch, in order to evaluate the internal consistency of the grape.” This is a technical breakthrough which stems directly from the sharing of information and the networking of expertise from different sectors and disciplines. “We are all proud to have participated in creating an active community around phenology, which shares the same language, and which is geared towards technicians and the managers of experimental facilities, whether they be agricultural or forestry.”

Towards a common platform

The results speak for themselves: the harmonisation of the various existing observational guides, the development of a common frame of reference for observation, the creation of a shared experimental system to monitor and predict, modelling the effects of climate change and the design of an information system on the web. “Modelling is an important step in the project because it allowed us to formalise the knowledge we had gained through experimentation and to test hypotheses. For example, this has been the case with work around dormancy, a stage of the plant’s hidden phenology. Thanks to the work of the network, we have been able to explore the functioning of a major stage in a plant’s life at different levels and for different species,” he says. Accumulated data is shared through a web platform called PERPHECLIM1, which is connected to existing databases from which it gleans information on phenology. “Today, the platform is operational with data from the Observatoire des Saisons, the INRAE PHENOCLIM historical database for fruit trees and vines, and the Plant Biology and Breeding Division’s Ephesis database for plants of agronomic interest. Our goal is to eventually become the global data platform for phenology,” concludes Iñaki.