SDG partnerships may perpetuate the global North-South divide.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development gives equal emphasis to developed ("Northern") countries and developing ("Southern") countries. Thus, implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) demands coherent collaboration to transform society across all countries. Yet, there has been little research published on SDG partnerships and this is the first study to explore the extent to which partners from Northern and Southern countries are involved in them and their focus. It identifies that involvement is unequally distributed and may perpetuate the North-South divide in countries' resources, including access to data and scientific capacities. Most notably, partners from low-income countries are involved in far fewer partnerships than partners from countries in all other World Bank income categories, although the former are least able to develop sustainably. As such, all those promoting sustainable development from governmental, private and third-sector organisations need to address global inequalities in establishing and implementing SDG partnerships if, collectively, they are to facilitate delivery of Agenda 2030.

Predicting a change in the order of spring phenology in temperate forests.

The rise in spring temperatures over the past half-century has led to advances in the phenology of many nontropical plants and animals. As species and populations differ in their phenological responses to temperature, an increase in temperatures has the potential to alter timing-dependent species interactions. One species-interaction that may be affected is the competition for light in deciduous forests, where early vernal species have a narrow window of opportunity for growth before late spring species cast shade. Here we consider the Marsham phenology time series of first leafing dates of thirteen tree species and flowering dates of one ground flora species, which spans two centuries. The exceptional length of this time series permits a rare comparison of the statistical support for parameter-rich regression and mechanistic thermal sensitivity phenology models. While mechanistic models perform best in the majority of cases, both they and the regression models provide remarkably consistent insights into the relative sensitivity of each species to forcing and chilling effects. All species are sensitive to spring forcing, but we also find that vernal and northern European species are responsive to cold temperatures in the previous autumn. Whether this sensitivity reflects a chilling requirement or a delaying of dormancy remains to be tested. We then apply the models to projected future temperature data under a fossil fuel intensive emissions scenario and predict that while some species will advance substantially others will advance by less and may even be delayed due to a rise in autumn and winter temperatures. Considering the projected responses of all fourteen species, we anticipate a change in the order of spring events, which may lead to changes in competitive advantage for light with potential implications for the composition of temperate forests.

Links between plant species' spatial and temporal responses to a warming climate.

To generate realistic projections of species' responses to climate change, we need to understand the factors that limit their ability to respond. Although climatic niche conservatism, the maintenance of a species's climatic niche over time, is a critical assumption in niche-based species distribution models, little is known about how universal it is and how it operates. In particular, few studies have tested the role of climatic niche conservatism via phenological changes in explaining the reported wide variance in the extent of range shifts among species. Using historical records of the phenology and spatial distribution of British plants under a warming climate, we revealed that: (i) perennial species, as well as those with weaker or lagged phenological responses to temperature, experienced a greater increase in temperature during flowering (i.e. failed to maintain climatic niche via phenological changes); (ii) species that failed to maintain climatic niche via phenological changes showed greater northward range shifts; and (iii) there was a complementary relationship between the levels of climatic niche conservatism via phenological changes and range shifts. These results indicate that even species with high climatic niche conservatism might not show range shifts as instead they track warming temperatures during flowering by advancing their phenology.

Dissecting the contributions of plasticity and local adaptation to the phenology of a butterfly and its host plants.

Phenology affects the abiotic and biotic conditions that an organism encounters and, consequently, its fitness. For populations of high-latitude species, spring phenology often occurs earlier in warmer years and regions. Here we apply a novel approach, a comparison of slope of phenology on temperature over space versus over time, to identify the relative roles of plasticity and local adaptation in generating spatial phenological variation in three interacting species, a butterfly, Anthocharis cardamines, and its two host plants, Cardamine pratensis and Alliaria petiolata. All three species overlap in the time window over which mean temperatures best predict variation in phenology, and we find little evidence that a day length requirement causes the sensitive time window to be delayed as latitude increases. The focal species all show pronounced temperature-mediated phenological plasticity of similar magnitude. While we find no evidence for local adaptation in the flowering times of the plants, geographic variation in the phenology of the butterfly is consistent with countergradient local adaptation. The butterfly's phenology appears to be better predicted by temperature than it is by the flowering times of either host plant, and we find no evidence that coevolution has generated geographic variation in adaptive phenological plasticity.

A 250-year index of first flowering dates and its response to temperature changes.

Widespread concerns about global biodiversity loss have led to a growing demand for indices of biodiversity status. Today, climate change is among the most serious threats to global biodiversity. Although many studies have revealed phenological responses to climate change, no long-term community-level indices have been developed. We derived a 250-year index of first flowering dates for 405 plant species in the UK for assessing the impact of climate change on plant communities. The estimated community-level index in the most recent 25 years was 2.2-12.7 days earlier than any other consecutive 25-year period since 1760. The index was closely correlated with February-April mean Central England Temperature, with flowering 5.0 days earlier for every 1 degrees C increase in temperature. The index was relatively sensitive to the number of species, not records per species, included in the model. Our results demonstrate how multi-species, multiple-site phenological events can be integrated to obtain indices showing trends for each species and across species. This index should play an important role in monitoring the impact of climate change on biodiversity. Furthermore, this approach can be extended to incorporate data from other taxa and countries for evaluating cross-taxa and cross-country phenological responses to climate change.

Differences in spawning date between populations of common frog reveal local adaptation.

Phenotypic differences between populations often correlate with climate variables, resulting from a combination of environment-induced plasticity and local adaptation. Species comprising populations that are genetically adapted to local climatic conditions should be more vulnerable to climate change than those comprising phenotypically plastic populations. Assessment of local adaptation generally requires logistically challenging experiments. Here, using a unique approach and a large dataset (>50,000 observations from across Britain), we compare the covariation in temperature and first spawning dates of the common frog (Rana temporaria) across space with that across time. We show that although all populations exhibit a plastic response to temperature, spawning earlier in warmer years, between-population differences in first spawning dates are dominated by local adaptation. Given climate change projections for Britain in 2050-2070, we project that for populations to remain as locally adapted as contemporary populations will require first spawning date to advance by approximately 21-39 days but that plasticity alone will only enable an advance of approximately 5-9 days. Populations may thus face a microevolutionary and gene flow challenge to advance first spawning date by a further approximately 16-30 days over the next 50 years.