Project description
Forecasting the floral impacts of climate change
Plant flowering is not as predictable as it used to be. Instead, plants today are flowering earlier than usual because they sense that winters are shorter and milder. Warmer weather is a sign to plants that it is already time for spring development. This suggests that climate change is disrupting the delicate timing of flowering, which in turn has serious implications for biodiversity and public health. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the INFloR project aims to investigate the impacts of changing environments using historical data, citizen science, and climate data. The INFloR project will target Mediterranean grasses to quantify phenological sensitivity and provide tools for better forecasting of the allergenic pollen season.
Objective
Changes in temperature and precipitation are altering flowering phenology (the timing of onset and duration), affecting plant reproduction, pollinator diversity, and other species interactions. In biodiversity hotspots such as Mediterranean-type ecosystems (MTEs), which host ~20% of global plant biodiversity, phenological shifts have major implications for the abundance and diversity of floral resources and the animals that rely on them. Moreover, the biodiversity of hotspots is increasingly threatened by climate change and biological invasions. Invasive plant species act synergistically with climate change, displacing native species, disrupting pollination, and elevating public health risks by shifting the allergenic pollen season (already costing >€223 billion annually in Europe). The economic cost of plant invasions in the Mediterranean Basin – the most diverse MTE – is also high: >€9 billion over the past 30 years. Since ~50% of the Basin lies within Europe, these ecological and economic impacts are critical for the continent. Flowering time is a powerful but underused metric that can be used to forecast and to mitigate the ecological and economic impacts of climate change and biological invasions. The INFloR project aims to measure flowering phenology and its climate sensitivity in native vs. invasive angiosperms across MTEs and to forecast flowering responses under future climate scenarios, focusing on Mediterranean Basin grasses. Using literature, herbarium and citizen science data, climate records, species traits, and recently developed analytical approaches, I will (1) compare phenological overlap of natives and invasives, (2) estimate phenological sensitivity to climate, (3) assess trait-based and historical drivers, and (4) develop forecasting tools. Results will inform invasive species management (e.g. the optimum time for mowing or manual removal) and improve predictions of allergenic pollen season, advancing both biodiversity conservation and health.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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41004 Sevilla
Spain
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