Climate change has altered the timing of recurring biological cycles in both plants and animals. Phenological changes may be unequal within and among trophic levels, potentially impacting the intricate interactions that regulate ecosystem functioning. Here we compile and analyse a global dataset of terrestrial phenological observations, including nearly half a million time series for both plants and animals. Our analysis reveals an increasing phenological asynchronization between plants and animals from 1981 to 2020, with a stronger overall advancement of late-season phenophases for plants than for animals. Almost 30% of temporal variations in plant phenophases can be explained by the timing of the preceding phenophases. This temporal dependency allows the advancement caused by warming to accumulate and propagate through seasons, advancing later phenophases more than earlier phases. By contrast, animals rely on various environmental cues and resource-tracking strategies to initiate their life-cycle activities, which weakens their cross-phenophase linkage and undermines the effect of warming. Our results suggest that future warming may increase phenological asynchronization between plants and animals and potentially disturb trophic interactions and ecosystem stability.

气候变化改变了植物和动物重复生物循环的时间。物候变化在营养级内和营养级之间可能不相等，这可能会影响调节生态系统功能的复杂相互作用。在这里，我们编译和分析了一个全球陆地物候观测数据集，包括近五十万个植物和动物的时间序列。我们的分析揭示了 1981 年至 2020 年植物和动物之间的物候不同步性增加，植物晚季物候期的整体进展强于动物。植物物候期中近 30% 的时间变化可以用前一个物候期的时间来解释。这种时间依赖性使变暖引起的进步能够在季节中积累和传播，从而比早期阶段更提前后期物型期。相比之下，动物依靠各种环境线索和资源追踪策略来启动它们的生命周期活动，这削弱了它们的跨表期联系并削弱了变暖的影响。我们的结果表明，未来的变暖可能会增加植物和动物之间的物候不同步，并可能干扰营养相互作用和生态系统稳定。