PhenoInfo: Documenting Phenology (text)

[tmuhich]

This section should have a heading stating, "Documenting Phenology."

It should then have a slideshow to click through with each paragraph getting its own slide.

While phenological events occur throughout the year, they are most noticeable in plants during spring and autumn. What are some phenological events you have witnessed during winter, spring, summer, and autumn?

It is easy to notice trees changing color every year, but hard to remember if the color change happened at the same time as in previous years, or if the colors lasted as long. For this, we need data collected over many years, and to answer many questions, over large areas of land. This is often accomplished using remote sensing (satelites) for things that are easily measured from space, but in many cases where satellites would not be effective, such as documenting when spring peepers, a small frog starts to call, or insects emerge, it has to be done on the ground and citizen or community science must be employed.

When many people are collecting data that will be analyzed together, it is essential that people collect the data in the same way. You might think it is easy to take data on whether a tree has leaves on it or not, and most of the time you would be right, but there may be a few days in the spring or fall when different people would come to different conclusions. To overcome this, we need clear definitions, and rules to follow.

In PhenoWatch, you will have the opportunity to select whether you are going to collect data on leaves or flowers. If you select leaves, a phenological status of “yes” means that the tree has leaves, and a status of “no” means it does not. If you select flowers, a phenological status of “yes” means that the tree is flowering, and a status of “no” means it does not.

[eventually there will be one more paragraph with definitions as to when to count something as leafing or flowering when it is in between]