Observing & Reporting Urban Tree Phenology: What's In It for Community Forestry Partners?
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Observing & Reporting Urban Tree Phenology: What's In It for Community Forestry Partners? Theresa Crimmins, USA National Phenology Network | Dudley Hartel, USFS
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Observing & Reporting Urban Tree Phenology: What's In It for Community Forestry Partners?
- 1. Theresa Crimmins USA National Phenology Network November, 2013 Partners in Community Forestry Observing & reporting urban tree phenology: What’s in it for community forest partners? Dudley Hartel USDA Forest Service
- 2. Urban Tree Phenology for Urban & Community Forestry In this presentation … A word about crowd sourcing & citizen science Professional arborists & urban foresters How can it help your organization What is phenology Nature’s Notebook U&CF NGOs & their volunteers An example: Casey Trees
- 3. Crowd Sourcing vs. Citizen Science Crowd sourcing … the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people distributive problem solving Citizen science … scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateurs or nonprofessionals public participation in scientific research (also known as) crowd science, crowd-sourced science, or networked science
- 4. Urban Forestry Professionals & Community Partners Urban forest managers and arborists… see direct relationship between their phenology observations and information valuable for planning & management can work regionally (e.g. an ISA chapter) to leverage their immediate impact Community Partners for U&CF… will have volunteer opportunities for a wide range of interest & ability provide another level of support to your community’s U&CF program
- 6. Photo credit: L. Barnett
- 7. Photo credit: L. Barnett
- 8. Photo credit: P. Warren
- 9. What is phenology? • Linked to environmental conditions • Integrative • “Fingerprint” of change • Easy to observe …it is the study of recurring plant and animal life-cycle stages, or phenophases, and their relationship to environmental conditions. Photo credit: L. Barnett
- 10. Observing change over time I observed an unusual circumstance this spring on the foothill of Moscow Mountain, northern Idaho, elev. 3000‘. I have been monitoring the arrival of hummers for many years here--they range in arrival from early to late April. Usually the Calliope is first, followed by the Rufous. Over the last few years, the Rufous have been either arriving at the same time or before the Calliope. This year the two were nearly simultaneous on Apr. 23. About a week later I spotted the Black Chinned--usually not often seen, and never before late June/July (followed in late summer by the Broadtailed).
- 12. Value of tracking phenology to community forestry partners Generate baseline data Uncover new patterns or threats to resources Schedule management activities Engage members, volunteers, visitors Photo credit: P. Warren
- 13. Collecting baseline information Photo credit: P. Warren
- 14. Noticing when something is “not quite right” Frequent visits to trees can enable early identification of developing problems
- 15. Phenology can guide planning: Tracking leaf fall to improve water quality http://kstp.com/news/stories/S2979604.shtml?cat=1
- 16. USA National Phenology Network Primary goals • Observe phenological events • Understand how plants, animals & landscapes respond to climate change • Create a standardized dataset to support research and decision making Collect, store, and share phenology data and information
- 17. A multi-taxa, national-scale plant and animal phenology observation program • Standardized protocols • 3,000 observers reporting on 650 plant and 250 animal species • Web and mobile apps for data entry • Data download and visualization L. Barnett Nature’s Notebook is for scientists, naturalists, volunteers, land managers, park rangers, and YOU!
- 18. USA National Phenology Network Registered Nature’s Notebook sites
- 19. The basics of tracking phenology using Nature’s Notebook
- 20. The basics of tracking phenology using Nature’s Notebook >95%
- 21. The basics of tracking phenology using Nature’s Notebook >95%
- 22. Using Nature’s Notebook… • …as a way to engage volunteers • …to answer urbanization and climate change questions • …to better understand seasonal events in urban trees Engaging volunteers in two ways: • Through • Through continuing education classes
- 26. One way to implement: Phenology trails What is a Phenology Trail? …a network of Nature’s Notebook observation sites.
- 27. Education Resources • • • • Curriculum resources Outreach materials NN “Getting started” resources Training webinars
- 29. Register Legacy Phenology Data
- 30. Interested? What’s next? The USA-NPN can support you in… • Envisioning and implementing your effort • Managing and accessing your data • Connecting with others • Accessing curriculum and resources for outreach purposes We’d love to have you join us! Photo credit: L. Barnett
- 31. Thank you! You’re invited to connect with USA-NPN… • Join the Nature’s Notebook user community: sign up for our quarterly Partners Newsletter • Become a Nature’s Notebook observer: Contribute to science while having fun! • Discover new tools and resources for work or play Theresa Crimmins theresa@usanpn.org @TheresaCrimmins Dudley Hartel www.UrbanForestrySouth.org dhartel@fs.fed.us @ufs_cuif, @treeobs Leavesofchangeweekly.org
Editor's Notes
- Theresa Crimmins coordinates partnerships and outreach communications for the USA National Phenology Network, an organization that serves science and society by promoting broad understanding of plant and animal phenology and its relationship with environmental change. Dudley R. Hartel is Center Manager of Urban Forestry South (Athens, Georgia) which is one of three Urban & Community Forestry (U&CF) Technology Centers in the eastern US. Urban Forestry South provides technical program support for Region 8 U&CF coordinators & their programs. www.UrbanForesrySouth.org & www.LeavesOfChangaeWeekly
- In this presentation, Dudley will introduce the topic briefly, and Theresa will provide the phenology background and overview of the on-line reporting systems available for volunteer-based groups.
- All of you are familiar with and probably active in some form of social media. While most of these are designed to engage people and disseminate information (i.e. marketing tools), they can also be used as information gathering tools (e.g. what is happening where you are) that can engage people for direct action (e.g. a tree planting event). Two definitions can be used to describe social media when used to collect information or ideas for a specific purpose, objective, or task:crowd sourcing & citizen science. These are related but primarily differentiated by objective, primary beneficiary of the participation, or final products produced. In citizen science there are many examples: including early efforts to virtually network personal computers to collectively solve complex problems (e.g. DNA analysis), Audubon Christmas bird counts, and the national rain gauge & reporting system CoCoRaHS.National phenology networks (there are many around the world) focus on the collection of structured information that can be used by researchers to generate long-term data sets used for scientific discovery (e.g. climate studies) and to support shorter-term decision-making. The information may also be important for more immediate use locally that directly benefits the individual or organization that collects it. Additional benefits of the program can include: professional and volunteer development, community awareness, marketing, and recruitment.Both crowd sourcing and citizen science were concepts before the more recent expansion of social media; but, the internet, and particularly
- On Tuesday, Theresa and Dudley made a similar presentation to the Society of Municipal Arborists that focused on professional urban forest managers and their role in observing & reporting data that 1) can be used directly to support research important for their profession and work, and 2) involve themselves and their staff directly in observations that can be important on a weekly or seasonal basis. Professional urban forest managers have opportunities to expand their impact by working regionally with colleagues. Now Theresa will discuss phenology observation for non-profit and other urban & community forestry partners that can 1) provide new volunteer opportunities for a wide range of abilities and interests, and 2) like other organization activities directly support your local U&CF management program.
- So… how does that translate into something that I benefit from? Why should I spend my valuable time doing this additional activity??Helpful for groups that plant trees, maintain trees, and engage volunteers, in a variety of ways…
- Tracking phenology can be very useful in simply establishing a baseline – that is, getting a more detailed, clearer picture of what’s really happening. I realized this when I began to monitor the desert willow in my backyard, a tree that I see every day, all year round. I didn’t really expect to learn much from this – I actually started to do it so I’d understand this program that I’m out promoting better! But once I started documenting things regularly, I was amazed at what I learned. Here’s a screencap of my observations from our online data visualization tool (orient folks) – you can see I have observations spanning nearly 2 years for this individual. A few things I can take away from this:- Basic natural history: This tree puts on new leaves all through the growing season!In these two years, flowering started at about the same time, but lasted a bit longer in 2013I observed fruits months earlier in 2013!I also saw fruits ripen and drop earlier last year – could it be the weather? *expand on value of having this baseline information; extrapolate to urban forestry applicationsAlso, once I started to really *pay attention* to this tree in my yard, I also began to notice a bunch of tomato hornworms (sphynx moth larva), lynx spiders, and even crab spiders tucked up inside the tubular flowers! Great fun for engaging my little boys…
- Nature’s Notebook is the USA National Phenology Network’s plant and animal phenology observation program. Through this program, scientists and non-scientists alike are collecting phenology observations on hundreds of species of plants and animals including birds, frogs, mammals, insects, fish, and herps, following scientifically rigorous protocols. Nature’s Notebook can directly support research and decision-making. The phenology observations collected through Nature’s Notebook are maintained in USA-NPN’s national phenology database made freely available for query, visualization, and download on the USA-NPN website.
- Here’s a very concrete example of how one non-profit tree group is using NN…CT mission is to restore, enhance, and protect the tree canopy of the Nation’s CapitalHelpful info to better understand which species will adapt well to CC (and which won’t)The RiverSmart Homes Shade Tree Program is designed to reduce stormwater runoff and erosion on residential property in D.C. Through this program, homeowners can have shade trees planted on their property by Casey Trees for $50 per tree.
- We can set things up internally so that when new CT members/volunteers join NN, they affiliate themselves w/CT. Then, any records they submit are tagged with the CT affiliation, and CT can easily track what’s been submitted by CT participants. This is helpful for tracking volunteer hours as well as the “shape” of the dataset being collected (# and distribution of trees being monitored, species being monitored, monitoring frequency, what phenophases are being reported on, etc…)
- This talk will provide an introduction to the science of phenology and its importance as well as discuss the USA-NPN’s role in phenology study and data collection. It briefly highlights citizen science and how to use our Nature’s Notebook data collection program. It will provide some background on how the program was designed and who the participants are, as well as the USA-NPN’s role in Education. We will provide examples about how to implement Nature’s Notebook at a site, such as a school, nature area, national park, wildlife refuge, and give you information about the tools you’ll need to do so. Lastly, we will provide a quick overview on how to use Nature’s Notebook, noting that we have many, many resources online to help you navigate the website and online data entry system.