Dear USA-NPN,
We are quickly approaching the end of the calendar year, a time to reflect on all that we've accomplished in the past 12 months. This year has been another big one for the USA-NPN; thanks to our amazing pool of dedicated observers and our community of data end-users, we've again set some new records. We have surpassed the mark of 40 million phenology records contributed to Nature's Notebook, and in 2024, at least 25 peer-reviewed papers were published using USA-NPN data and products - substantially more than in any previous year.
We are looking forward to some great things in 2025, including making major headway on the overhaul of the Nature's Notebook app and observing experience. Read on to learn how you can get involved with that! We will also have multiple new resources coming online in the spring that can support both formal and informal phenology education.
In the meantime, I wish you a wonderful, restorative break. Thank you for your collaboration and engagement over the past year, and here's to a great 2025!
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What's new at the USA National Phenology Network
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Shape the new Nature's Notebook app! |
Work is going full steam ahead on developing the new and improved Nature's Notebook app! We are working hard to ensure that the new app is inviting, engaging, and accessible to everyone who wants to connect with nature's rhythms and document phenological changes. We invite you to join our Participant Pool, where we will send progress notes and ask for your feedback to ensure that we are creating the best user experience to suit your needs. All members of the participant pool will even earn an exclusive badge when the new app releases!
Learn more and join »
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Welcome, Erin Zylstra, to the NPN team! |
This month we welcomed a new member to the USA-NPN team! Erin Zylstra is a quantitative ecologist who specializes in the development and application of analytical tools to better understand ecological processes and inform conservation efforts. She has developed hierarchical modeling frameworks to characterize demography and population dynamics of wildlife species and helped to design and evaluate monitoring programs for species of conservation concern. Erin has worked with a wide variety of species, including desert tortoises, amphibians, and monarch butterflies, but has a particular fondness for plants and animals in the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona.
Erin joins USA-NPN as a Research Scientist and is interested in assessing the effects of climate and land use change on plant and wildlife populations and optimizing sampling methods to obtain high-quality data to inform these assessments. Welcome, Erin!
Learn more about Erin »
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USA-NPN Phenophase Primer complete and available in 2025! |
The long, long wait is over... the USA-NPN's Phenophase Primer is complete and set to go live in early 2025! This extraordinary 240-page resource will address all of your questions regarding the nuance of phenophase status in plants. We can't wait for you to experience it!
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Preorders for Phenology now open |
Looking for a basic primer on the topic of phenology, for use in your classes, or even to simply better explain to your friends and loved ones what the term means? We've got you covered! Phenology, a part of the MIT Press's Essential Knowledge book series, provides a simple and comprehensive overview of the topic. The book will go live on Mar 4, 2025. You can now preorder your copy!
Learn more »
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Updates to the USA-NPN's R package, rnpn, are currently underway. Please remember to update your package periodically; it can be installed either from CRAN or GitHub. Package documentation has been updated and will be maintained.
rnpn documentation in CRAN »
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Notifications for red brome activity |
This past year, the USA-NPN and researchers with the US Geological Survey created a Pheno Forecast that predicts the seasonal activity of red brome, Bromus rubens. You can sign up to receive notifications by email two weeks and six days before activity starts in your area. If you used the forecast, we'd love to hear your feedback in this short survey.
Sign up for red brome activity notifications »
Complete the red brome survey »
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NEON phenology data fully integrated into USA-NPN database |
After a long lapse, we are pleased to report that plant phenology observations collected at National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) sites are being integrated into the USA-NPN database on a monthly basis. NEON phenology data can be acquired either directly through NEON tools or along with phenology observations contributed through Nature's Notebook through USA-NPN data access tools. NEON has contributed approximately 6M phenology records (2012-present).
Access the data »
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Who is advancing more: understory herbs or overstory trees? |
Plants growing in the forest understory, including spring ephemerals (short-lived herbaceous plants), are important members of the forest plant community. A team of Appalachian Mountain Club scientists evaluated observations of leaf out and flowering in 11 understory plant and 14 tree species to help address the outstanding question of which plant group is shifting their springtime activity more. Overall, understory plants are advancing the timing of their activity twice as much as trees under warmer conditions. Interestingly, plants of the mid-Atlantic region – comprising the “middle” section of the Appalachian Trail – showed substantially more advancement than plants to the north or the south. And finally: when they looked at differences among the plant groups by region, they only saw evidence of greater advancement among understory plants in the north. The findings of this analysis are good news for the understory plants. Greater advancement in the springtime activity of these plants compared to leaf-out in the overstory canopy means more time for them to grow prior to being shaded out by the larger trees.
Read the Publication Summary »
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Trillium sessile
Photo: Stefanie Paeg
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Late spring frosts delay flowering |
Researchers examined data collected by multiple phenology networks across the Northern Hemisphere, including Nature's Notebook data, to examine how late spring frosts (frosts that occur after plants leaf out) affect the subsequent timing of flowering. They found that these late frosts do delay the timing of flowering by about 6 days, and that late-leafing species are more sensitive than early-leafing species.
Learn more »
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Special issue in Discover Ecology: plant phenology in an era of rapid change |
I'm excited to be co-editing a special issue in the journal Discover Ecology with Drs. Robert Guralnick and Daijiang Li focused on phenology. The papers in this topical collection will feature novel research representing new perspectives and frontiers in plant phenology, sparking discussions on how to advance the field. We would love to include your work!
Learn more »
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Special issue in Forests: vegetation and remote sensing |
Several phenology colleagues are coordinating a special issue in the journal Forests focused on patterns and dynamics of vegetation growth, leaf emergence and senescence in deciduous forests as well as implications for ecosystem management, biodiversity conservation, and climate change mitigation.
Learn more »
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Special issue in Scientific Data: phenology and species distributions |
The journal Scientific Data has an open call for papers to a special collection on the topic of Phenology and species distributions, guest edited by Dr. Desire Dalton, Prof. Xiaolei Huang & Dr. Le Yu.
This collection welcomes submissions of Data Descriptors, which are articles describing repository datasets shared without results or conclusions.
Learn more »
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Theresa Crimmins
Director
520-621-8523
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