Phenology, the study of natural plant and animal life-cycle events and how they are affected by climate, is useful and relevant for a variety of natural-resource managers and scientists.
Members should anticipate receiving a Citizen Naturalist Nature Log in the mail in early Spring.
They are asked simply to record such dates as when the trees and shrubs have leaves or flowers, and when the leaves change color and drop in autumn. These few observations, when combined with those from fellow members across America, will be an invaluable contribution to our understanding of how to care for the natural world.
All the information will be collected by mail in late autumn and compiled and displayed on the website of the USA National Phenology Network. Through the Network, this combined data will help resource managers and scientists at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, National Science Foundation, National Park Service, and other national and international organizations and universities.
As our members become modern Citizen Naturalist, they become part of a cherished American tradition. The information will be compiled and analyzed nationwide, and compared with what researchers call “legacy data sets”—data recorded in the past, some well more than a century ago, by the citizen naturalists of their day. These observers were ordinary people, as well as famous naturalists such as Jefferson, Leopold, and Thoreau.
“About the middle of May, the red maples, their fruit being nearly ripe, are among the most beautiful objects in the landscape, especially if seen in a favorable light,” wrote Henry David Thoreau.
As Citizen Naturalists, Arbor Day Foundation members are joining Thoreau, Aldo Leopold who recorded acorn falling times, and President Thomas Jefferson who wrote about lilacs in his garden book. Foundation members' Nature Log observations will become part of the legacy data that will benefit today’s scientists and future generations.
Members—and others—who wish to also provide information beyond the trees and shrubs we’ll be asking about, can provide information at usanpn.org.
