Windermere study shows spring is coming earlier (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Windermere study shows spring is coming earlier

4:39pm Tuesday 9th February 2010

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SPRING is coming earlier than it did in the mid-1970s – according to a study of aquatic life in Windermere and Esthwaite Water.

Scientists at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, formerly based on Windermere’s shore at Ferry House, Sawrey, examined 726 species of plants and animals at various UK locations in the largest nature survey of its kind – finding the seasonal change is coming a week and a half earlier than it did 30 years ago.

The Lake District study monitored changes to plankton and fish to see how they were affected by year-to-year changes in the weather.

Headed by Dr Stephen Thackeray and Professor Sarah Wanless, the research team, including scientists from the Ferry House-based Freshwater Biological Association, checked out 25,000 trends marking the start of spring – such as aphids appearing, bees coming out of hibernation and the production of frog spawn.

They concluded that, on average, the seasonal timing of reproduc-tion and population growth had moved forward 11 days since 1976.

Lancaster-based Dr Thackeray said the pattern of long-term changes over different environ-ments suggested it was due to climate change.

He said: “This is the first time that data [has] been analysed with enough consistency to allow meaningful comparison of patterns... among such a diverse range of plants and animals.

“What we have to work out now is what the likely consequences of these changes will be.”

Co-author Richard Smithers, of the Woodland Trust, said: “The results of this new study make real our changing climate and its potential to have profound consequences for the complex web of life.”

The survey found the most significant changes were most rapid for organisms at the bottom of the food chains, such as plants and the animals that feed on them.

Predators have shown slower overall changes in the seasonal timing of their life cycle events.

A key question now is whether animals higher up the food chain will react to the faster rates of change in the plants and animals they feed upon, or whether they will fail to do so and become less successful at rearing their offspring.

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