Exceptional damaging climate events including drought have become a major feature in current global climate change. Understanding the ecological responses of ecosystem to extreme events could contribute to prediction of ecosystem pattern and function in future. In this study we artificially imposed extreme droughts at the beginning and the peak of growing season on an alpine meadow plant community on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau to observe the flowering responses. The results showed that (1) extreme drought at the beginning of growing season significantly advanced the mid-flowering date of alpine meadow plant by 2.3 d; extreme drought in the peak growing season significantly compressed the flower duration by 2.3 d; (2) the flower phenology responses of species were related to the seasonality of their reproduction; (3) after treatments functional groups reacted inconsistently, with the forbs sensitive to the extreme drought while the sedges and grasses not; (4) the intense ecological responses of plant flowering to extreme climate change implied the importance of researches regard to extreme events. Fig 4, Tab 3, Ref 58
