The start of spring is not a single point in time. If you observe phenology, you no doubt appreciate that the events that characterize spring – the emergence of leaves, opening of flower buds, arrival of migratory birds, and reappearance of insects – don’t all occur at the same time. To more fully capture and characterize how spring is playing out, the USA-NPN added the Late Bloom Index to our suite of indices of the spring season. The new Late Bloom Index indicates when enough warmth has been accumulated to prompt the latest-flowering shrubs and trees to flower. The combination of the three indices provides a more complete picture of how spring has unfolded at locations across the country.

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Our new Pheno Forecasts for Japanese beetle adult emergence and egg hatch are now available! Japanese beetle is considered to be among the most damaging turfgrass pests in eastern and Midwestern states. It has also brought large-scale destruction to garden plants and agricultural crops.

The forecasts use new models developed by our partners at US Pest at Oregon State University. We have also created a learning module to assist you with how to identify Japanese beetle, how to report its life cycle events, and why you should care. 

View the Japanese beetle Pheno Forecast »

Sign up for notifications for when to expect Japanese beetle in your zip code »

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Work is currently underway to improve the functionality of the USA-NPN's R package, rnpn. Stay tuned for a new version in CRAN very soon. We are also working on pushing the package to ROpenSci to increase discoverability.

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Biological and physical science infrastructure programs play a critical role in supporting scientific discovery. Even with their foundational roles in the process of science, frequently, support for these programs is threatened, reduced, or eliminated, placing critical data and information at risk of interruption or loss. Last year, the USA-NPN team was fortunate to work with a commercial new business development specialist to explore ways to generate commercial. In this paper, our business development specialist, Jeremy Clark, and I describe the process and our findings. The outcomes of this collaboration may be helpful for organizations similarly situated at academic institutions and facing sudden reductions in funding.

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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!

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While some parts of the U.S. experienced an early start to spring, many areas were slower to come online this year. However, things picked up as the season progressed. This post on Climate.gov provides a clear explanation and interactive tool for exploring how spring played out in various locations across the Lower 48 this past spring.

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As the climate changes, there has been a significant increase in the frequency of extreme weather events like heat waves, droughts, and hurricanes. We know that increases in average temperatures affect the timing of plant and animal activities, but the effects of extreme weather events are largely unknown. To address this knowledge gap, researchers used millions of photos of plants, butterflies, and moths that were submitted to iNaturalist between 2016 and 2022 to evaluate the effects of extreme heat, cold, dry, or wet conditions on the timing of plant flowering and adult insect activity. The results showed that the onset and duration of plant and animal activities were impacted by extreme events and not just changes in average climate conditions. However, the effects of extreme weather were complex, often differing between plants and animals and varying regionally. Results from this study can help us predict how plant and insect populations will respond to extreme weather events, which are likely to occur more often with climate change.

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Dr. Daniel Katz is seeking a postdoctoral researcher in remote sensing and modeling of airborne pollen at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. This position will focus on creating phenological models based on remote sensing data, citizen science observations, and field observations; bridging from UAV to satellite images to estimate pollen production rates across large regions, and; merging these and other datasets to create near-term iterative forecasts of pollen release. The resulting datasets will be used for atmospheric dispersion modeling and epidemiological analyses; the postdoc will also have the opportunity to participate in these teams. Other potential foci include forecast dissemination and commercialization.

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Connect with other phenology researchers in New Orleans this December! You are invited to contribute an abstract to the long-standing phenology session, "Understanding Phenological Responses, Changes and Feedbacks: Patterns, Mechanisms, and Consequences." Abstracts are due Jul 30, so act fast!

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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! Presenters at Botany 2025, Phenology 2025, or the fall AGU meeting, this would be an ideal outlet to further share your work!



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