Almond trees in bloom, processions in the trees and scarves in the closet: the last weeks of January and the first days of February, with temperatures more typical of spring, have dizzy the biological cycle of different species, although the cold and rain will return this same week.
During the last days of last month, thermometers have reached over 30 degrees in some parts of Spain, which has influenced “both the biological cycles of animals and flowering,” the general director of the National Association of Environmental Health Companies (ANECPLA), Jorge Galván.
The most obvious case, Galván emphasizes, is that of “arthropods such as ticks, mosquitoes or cockroaches, because they are not able to maintain their body temperature” and react positively to the rise in temperatures by advancing their biological processes.
This is happening, for example, with the pine processionary (Thaumetopoea pityocampa), a small insect with a “devastating impact” on the trees it colonizes and which is also capable of producing “strong allergic reactions in both people and animals.”
This caterpillar leaves in nourished groups from its pockets in the pine trees to the ground “where it pupates” or the transition state prior to becoming an adult, a process that in past years could be seen between the months of March and June but that “comes systematically advancing in recent years” and can be seen in provinces such as Malaga.
The situation complicates pest management, “and even more so taking into account the progressive increase in legal restrictions at the European level of the biocidal products that were being applied” to control them, which reinforces the importance of prevention campaigns that must be deployed. in autumn.
The increase in average temperatures has caused the appearance of “animal species where there were none before, such as in Galicia or the Basque Country, since Spain is making the transition from a subtropical climate to a tropical one,” adds Galván.
The flora has also been affected by the anomalous temperatures this winter, as explained by spokespersons for the Spanish Association of Florists (AEFI), who have noted the “delays or advances in the flowering of some varieties”, especially of those species that are not grown in greenhouses.
Although the problem “concerns more the production processes and gardening than the florists”, AEFI has recognized its visibility in the advance of the flowering of almond trees, a typical image of spring but that these days it has been possible to contemplate even in the outskirts of Madrid capital, or in the mimosas “which are seasonal and are already being marketed.”
Despite this, the organization of florist entrepreneurs has not detected “major repercussions” on the business as such, accustomed to working with a “perishable and subject to atmospheric risks” product such as flowers, whose maintenance costs are “stable.” since most of the genus “is kept in cold rooms all year round.”
In any case, “there are many spring flowers such as hydrangea or calla lilies that are not yet available.” “Global warming alters growth and causes changes in the productivity of many species of flora,” warns the Pyrenean Climate Change Observatory. (OPCC).
According to the OPCC, “changes in the different climatic parameters and the increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 influence photosynthesis and have effects on the growth and development of all vegetation.”
These changes can alter the characteristic composition of mountain communities, “reducing their diversity and favoring the acceleration of the thermophilization process,” when plant ecosystems tend to transform with species that prefer warmer climates.
