Flower Phenology, Bumble Bee Foraging, and Climate Change in North Cascades Mountain Meadows

We conducted a five-year study (2015–2019) of flower phenology and insect flower-foraging in Heather Meadows in the northern portion of the North Cascades in Washington State. We recorded 70 species of eudicot forbs and shrubs on seven transects at elevations ranging from 1,260 to 1,582 m. In a typical year, there was continuity of floral resources within each transect and across the elevational gradient for the duration of the growing season. Black huckleberry was a critically important forage resource for post-diapause queens as they established nests in spring, even as 98% of the meadow was under snow. Transects with the highest tree island cover had the largest number of foraging spring queens. The exceptionally early spring of 2015 made it a good analog of climate change predicted for this region toward the end of the century. In 2015, flowering was two to eight weeks early for a majority of species, while the duration of flowering increased for a few species and decreased substantially for others, leading to phenological reassembly. These findings preview the potential impacts of climate change on flowering plants and flower-foraging insects in mountain meadows in the Pacific Northwest and could help guide effective conservation.