ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Drylands
Morphological and phenological shifts in semiarid grasses associated to climate change
Provisionally accepted
- 1Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil
- 2Jardim Botanico do Recife, Recife, Brazil
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Plants respond to climate change through shifts in traits such as height, leaf width, and flowering time. However, little is known about how grass species in semiarid ecosystems are responding. In this study, we tested three hypotheses: (1) grass species are experiencing morphological shifts in their vegetative and reproductive organs in response to climate change; (2) precipitation is the main driver of these shifts; and (3) climate change influences the flowering times of annual grasses in the Brazilian semiarid region. We analyzed morphological data from 591 herbarium specimens of four annual grass speciescollected between 1859 and 2022, along with climate data from 1960 onwards, including monthly mean precipitation, temperature (mean, maximum, and minimum). Using simple linear regressions, we assessed relationships between morphological, phenological, climatic, and temporal variables. Our results revealed morphological changes associated with climate change: three species showed reductions in plant height, two species exhibited shorter leaves and inflorescences, and one species presented smaller spikelets. Flowering times were delayed with increasing temperatures, although no consistent directional change in flowering phenology was observed over the last 163 years. These findings provide empirical evidence of climate change-driven morphological changes in grasses from semiarid ecosystems and highlight temperature as a key factor affecting flowering phenology in this region.
Keywords: Climate Change, Global Warming, Herbaria, Leptochloa anisopoda, morphology, Panicum trichoides, Paspalum fimbriatum, Paspalum scutatum
Received: 09 May 2025; Accepted: 04 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 César Da Silva and Rodrigues Maciel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Julio César Da Silva, julio.csilva3@ufrpe.br
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.