Beyond arctic and alpine: the influence of winter climate on temperate ecosystems

Winterclimate is expected to change under future climate scenarios, yet the majority of winterecology research is focused in cold- climate ecosystems. In many tem- perate systems, it is unclear how winterclimate relates to biotic responses during the growing season. The objective of this study was to examine how winterweather relates to plant and animal communitiesin a variety of terrestrial ecosystemsranging from warm deserts to alpine tundra. Specifically, we examined the association between winterweather and plant phenology, plant species richness, consumer abundance, and consumer richness in 11 terrestrial ecosystemsassociated with the U.S. Long- Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network. To varying degrees, winterprecipitation and temperature were correlated with all biotic response variables. Bud break was tightly aligned with end of wintertemperatures. For half the sites, winterweather was a better predictor of plant species richness than growing seasonweather. Warmer winterswere correlated with lower consumer abundances in both temperate and alpine systems. Our findings suggest winterweather may have a strong influence on biotic activity during the growing seasonand should be considered in future studies investigating the effects of climate change on both alpine and temperate systems.