A Review of Reproductive Plant Phenology in South and Central America: New Perspectives

Phenology has emerged as a pivotal field within environmental science, essential to understanding the impacts of climate change. In this review, we aim to comprehensively assess the phenological research in South and Central America, updating and expanding previous surveys. We delineate the flowering and fruiting patterns observed across the primary vegetation types studied thus far, shedding light on areas where phenological data remains scarce. Despite a notable increase in published papers, there remains a pressing need for continued phenological investigations. Notably, research distribution across South American vegetation types and life forms still exhibits significant disparities, with tropical moist forests receiving disproportionate attention and trees dominating observations. However, our review shows an increased focus on grasslands, savannas, and coastal systems, among other ecosystems. Long-term phenological datasets remain scant, but we mapped several efforts and data sets published in the last decade. Nevertheless, few sustained monitoring systems exist in the region. Unlike Northern Hemisphere counterparts, South and Central American research has lagged in exploring the nexus between plant phenology and climate change-the interplay with local climate and plant-animal interactions is the key focus, explained by the high biodiversity and dependence on mutualistic interactions for reproduction. We highlight emerging areas of interest, including restoration ecology, climate change, biodiversity conservation, and the exploration of phenology field experiments (drought, CO2 enrichment), in addition to edge effects and fragmentation. The application of remote monitoring techniques using digital cameras has grown and expanded, but still focused on vegetative phenology, with some insights from drone imagery at near spatial scales. Looking ahead, establishing robust phenology networks stands as the primary challenge for researchers in these regions, necessitating collaborative efforts among universities, research institutions, governmental, and non-governmental agencies. Such efforts would result in better knowledge and understanding of climate change and nature by people and society.