Assessing Phenological Shifts of Deciduous Forests in Turkey under Climate Change: An Assessment for Fagus orientalis with Daily MODIS Data for 19 Years

Understanding how natural ecosystems are and will be responding to climate change is one of the primary goals ecological research. Plant phenology accepted as most sensitive bioindicators due its strong interactions with dynamics, a vast number studies from all around world present evidence considering phenological shifts response climatic changes. Land surface (LSP) also valuable tool in absence observational data for monitoring aforementioned shift responses. Our aim was investigate Fagus orientalis forests Turkey by means daily MODIS reflectance (MOD09GA) period between 2002 2020. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) calculated entire extent. This extent then masked F. orientalis. These “Fagus pixels” were filtered minimum 80% spatial an annual 20% temporal coverage. A combination two methods applied time series smoothing reconstruction start season (SOS), end season, length parameters extracted. Trends these over 19-year analyzed. results concert commonly reported earlier SOS pattern, Sen’s slope −0.8 days year−1. Lastly, relationships mean, maximum temperature, growing degree (GDD), chilling hours (CH) investigated. Results showed that significant correlations found mean trend accumulated CH GDD base temperature 2 °C, both February–March interval. immediate need observation network region discussed.