TRANSCRIPT
TITLE CARD: ‘Phenological mismatch with trees reduces wildflower carbon budgets’ written in a fun font above a cartoon sketch of each of the five authors’ faces and their names.
[MUSIC: Clear Day, Composer: Benjamin Tissot. Motivation piano/rock royalty free music. Happy & Fun mood, from bensound.com]
WORDS ON A BLACK SCREEN: We wish we could celebrate the Mercer Award in person!
WORDS ON A BLACK SCREEN: But, since we can't, we'd like to share a dramatic reading of our Abstract...
MASON (sitting outdoors): Phenological mismatch with trees reduces wildflower carbon Budgets.
MASON: Mason Heberling
CAITLIN (leaning against a tree on a college campus): Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie
JASON (sitting with a chicken): Jason Fridley
SUSAN (standing on a trail in the woods): Susan Kalisz
RICHARD (standing outdoors): Richard Primack
MASON: Interacting species can respond differently to climate change, causing unexpected consequences.
CAITLIN: Many understorey wildflowers in deciduous forests leaf out and flower in the spring when light availability is the highest before overstorey canopy closure. [Points up, camera pans to a full canopy of oak leaves.] Therefore, different phenological responses by understorey and overstorey species to increased spring temperature could have significant ecological implications.
RICHARD (standing next to a statue of Henry David Thoreau): Pairing contemporary data with historical observations initiated by Henry David Thoreau [turns to the statue of Thoreau with a meaningful glance] in the 1850s, we found that overstorey tree leaf out is more responsive to increased spring temperature than understorey wildflower phenology, resulting in shorter periods of high light in the understorey before wildflowers are shaded by tree canopies. [To statue] Thanks Henry.
JASON: Because of this overstorey–understorey mismatch, we estimate that wildflower spring carbon budgets in the north- eastern United States were 12–26% larger during Thoreau’s era and project a 10–48% reduction during this century.
SUSAN: This underappreciated phenomenon may have already reduced wildflower fit- ness and could lead to future population declines in these ecologically important species.
WORDS ON A BLACK SCREEN: Thank you, ESA, for this incredible honor.
WORDS ON A BLACK SCREEN: No shade, this award was the “high light” of our summer.
CREDITS SCROLL ON A BLACK SCREEN: Heberling, J. Mason, Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie, Jason D. Fridley, Susan Kalisz, and Richard B. Primack. “Phenological mismatch with trees reduced wildflower carbon budgets.” Ecology Letters 22, no. 4 (2019): 616-623
Camera work by Allison Heberling, Michael MacKenzie, Richard Primack, Genevieve Fridley, and Susan Kalisz
Artwork by Bonnie McGill, bonniem.weebly.com
Music: www.bensound.com
Special thanks to our field sites in Fox Chapel, PA and Concord, MA and funding from NSF
Casting Director & First Author Mason Heberling
Executive Producer & Second Author Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie
POST-CREDITS PRODUCTION LOGO/VANITY CARD: ‘Mara’s Mom Productions’ written over a black and white shot of Caitlin reading her lines under a tree.
OFF-SCREEN CHILD: Mom! Mommy!
CAITLIN: Significant eco-[breaking] ecological impacts. Oh my! [Laughing]