Impact of Weather on the Leafing, Flowering, and Fruiting Patterns of Woody Plant Communities in the Tropical Dry Forests of Bannerghatta National Park, India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55863/ijees.2025.0631Keywords:
Phenophase, Circular statistics, Regression, Principal component analysis, Seasonality, SynchronyAbstract
Phenological monitoring of woody individuals was undertaken to understand the patterns of leafing, flowering, and fruiting and the influence of weather. A total of 504 tagged individuals were monitored monthly for 4 years on two transects, namely, Thalewood House (TWH) and Bugarikallu (BGH), in the dry forests of Bannerghatta National Park. The leafing, flowering, and fruiting patterns in both transects had a similar trend. Peak leaf fall, leaf initiation, flower initiation, and fruit initiations were recorded in January, March, April, and May, respectively, in the transects. Exploratory analysis via predictive power scores showed that maximum temperature was a moderate predictor of leaf and flower initiation, while minimum temperature was a moderate predictor of leaflessness and leaf fall; soil moisture and humidity were a moderate predictor of fruit maturation. Spearman’s correlations show that maximum temperatures positively influenced leaf initiation and flower initiation, while minimum temperatures negatively influenced leaflessness and leaf fall; fruit maturation was positively influenced by soil moisture and humidity. Principal component analysis and multiple regressions confirmed that moisture-related factors negatively influenced leaf initiation, leaflessness, and flower initiations and positively influenced fruit maturation. Maximum temperature positively influenced leaf initiation, leaf fall, and flower initiations. The presence of seasonality using circular statistics showed that leaf, flower, and fruit initiations were unimodal and significantly seasonal. Synchronicity in leaf initiations was high in most species in TWH and BGK transects, whereas synchrony in flower and fruit initiations was moderate to low. This study confirms that maximum temperatures trigger leaf and flower initiations, while moisture-related factors favour leaf and fruit maturations in tropical dry forests.
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