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Climate warming is causing a shift in biological communities in favor of warm-affinity species (i.e., thermophilization). Species responses often lag behind climate warming, but the reasons for such lags remain largely unknown. Here, we analyzed multidecadal understory microclimate dynamics in European forests and show that thermophilization and the climatic lag in forest plant communities are primarily controlled by microclimate. Increasing tree canopy cover reduces warming rates inside forests, but loss of canopy cover leads to increased local heat that exacerbates the disequilibrium between community responses and climate change. Reciprocal effects between plants and microclimates are key to understanding the response of forest biodiversity and functioning to climate and land-use changes., (Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.)

1. Woody species' requirements and environmental sensitivity change from seedlings to adults, a process referred to as ontogenetic shift. Such shifts can be increased by climate change. To assess the changes in the difference of temperature experienced by seedlings and adults in the context of climate change, it is essential to have reliable climatic data over long periods that capture the thermal conditions experienced by the individuals throughout their life cycle. 2. Here we used a unique cross-European database of 2,195 pairs of resurveyed forest plots with a mean intercensus time interval of 37 years. We inferred macroclimatic temperature (free-air conditions above tree canopies--representative of the conditions experienced by adult trees) and microclimatic temperature (representative of the juvenile stage at the forest floor, inferred from the relationship between canopy cover, distance to the coast and below-canopy temperature) at both surveys. We then address the long-term, large-scale and multitaxa dynamics of the difference between the temperatures experienced by adults and juveniles of 25 temperate tree species. 3. We found significant, but species-specific, variations in the perceived temperature (calculated from presence/absence data) between life stages during both surveys. Additionally, the difference of the temperature experienced by the adult versus juveniles significantly increased between surveys for 8 of 25 species. We found evidence of a relationship between the difference of temperature experienced by juveniles and adults over time and one key functional trait (i.e. leaf area). Together, these results suggest that the temperatures experienced by adults versus juveniles became more decoupled over time for a subset of species, probably due to the combination of climate change and a recorded increase of canopy cover between the surveys resulting in higher rates of macroclimate than microclimate warming. 4. Synthesis. We document warming and canopy-cover induced changes in the difference of the temperature experienced by juveniles and adults. These findings have implications for forest management adaptation to climate change such as the promotion of tree regeneration by creating suitable species-specific microclimatic conditions. Such adaptive management will help to mitigate the macroclimate change in the understorey layer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]