I was originally supposed to take this walk on monday (4/14) but something came up leading to me having to do it today. Unfortunately, today was a crisp 40° and snowing while monday would have been 60° and sunny. Odd weather patterns like this can lead to disruptions in the phenophases of plant as if there is an unnaturally hot day, there may be enough environmental indicators for the plant to break its buds only for a cold spell in future days to kill the bud reducing the amount that that plant would be able to reproduce.
The infrequent warm spells didn’t seem to warp the phenophases of the trees I looked at which included Red Oak, Sugar Maple, White Oak, Red Maple, and Norway Maple. With spring still being in its youth, most of the trees I looked at weren’t very far in their phenological cycles yet what part of the cycle they were in was different among the trees.
The Red Maple was the plant furthest along in its phenological cycle as its leaf buds had broken to reveal the flower bud. The White Oak and the Sugar Maple had buds that were in the process of breaking while the Red Oak and the Norway Maple’s buds had yet to break.
These differences in the timing of phenophases is in part due to filling ecological niches in which by flowering at different times, the trees are not all competing with one another and don’t have to compete for the same animal pollinators. This difference in phenophase timing leads to more tree biodiversity as well as supports the pollinator biodiversity as they no longer have to compete over the nectar or other resources from the same plants.