Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
888 N EUCLID AVE
TUCSON,AZ 85719-4824
Performing Department
Natural Resources & the Environment
Non Technical Summary
Phenology, the timing of seasonal life cycles in plants and animals, is more than worth the effort and expense to track. Knowledge of the year-to-year variation as well as directional change in the timing of seasonal events such as leaf out, flowering, and migration has clear and direct value to human and ecosystem health, disease, economics, and society.Rooted in the notion that phenology reveals "fingerprints" of climate change (Parmesan 2007) as well as "the simplest process in which to track changes in the ecology of species in response to climate change" (IPCC 2007), the USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) was established 2007. The aims of the Network were to document and report the timing of seasonal events to support science, human health, agriculture, natural resources, tourism and recreation, and education.Over the past 14 years, the USA-NPN has grown into a national-scale, high impact enterprise, providing data, maps, decision support, and infrastructure to land management agencies, research scientists, policy makers, the news media, and the general public.The USA-NPN offers a growing roster of maps and short-term forecasts to support planning and management decisions. One suite of such maps, the USA-NPN's Status of Spring maps, which indicate the beginning of springtime biological activity, are referenced widely to anticipate the societal and economic impacts of early springs.These maps appear regularly in local and national news outletsto document an early or late start to spring locally. Other USA-NPN map and forecast products are similarly widely referenced in forestry, urban forestry, agriculture, and invasive species management applications.At the core of the forecast products offered by the USA-NPN is a rich, standardized, rapidly growing dataset of phenology observations contributed by professional and volunteer scientists through the USA-NPN's program, Nature's Notebook (www.naturesnotebook.org). This program is rigorous enough to have been adopted by several federal and state-level management agencies for collecting and maintaining phenology information, while approachable enough to be used daily by thousands of volunteer data collectors nationwide. Further, hundreds of higher education institutions and K-12 classrooms nationwide use Nature's Notebook and consequent data in inquiry-based learning and hands-on exploration of phenology and large datasets.Funds provided through this mechanism will help tocontinue to maintain the USA-NPN's core functions as we seek additional, more sustainable, sources of support for the program.
Animal Health Component
40%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
10%
Applied
40%
Developmental
50%
Goals / Objectives
We are currently actively seeking an alternative source of sustainable funding to support the Network and the value it provides to science and society. With support from USDA NIFA, we will continue to maintain the USA-NPN's core functions. Specifically, this will include:Maintaining Nature's Notebook. This will involve continuing activities to recruit new participants and support existing volunteers; maintaining and updating training, outreach, and educational materials; and continuing data collection campaigns.Maintaining several data access tools designed to accommodate users with varying levels of data manipulation skill; these include an online visualization tool (https://data.usanpn.org/vis-tool/#/), a GUI-based data query and download interface for observational data (https://data.usanpn.org/observations/get-started), a GUI-based interface for downloading raster or image files of gridded maps (https://www.usanpn.org/geoserver-request-builder), and an R library (rnpn).Continuing to produce and deliver a wide range of real-time phenology maps and short-term forecasts on a daily basisContinuing to grow the adoption of these data, resources, and tools by engaging with science, research, educator, and other end-user communities.
Project Methods
To continue to support and grow participation in Nature's Notebook, we will continue to market the program to individuals as well as organizations such as nature centers, arboreta, land conservancies, and National Wildlife Refuges. We will continue to provide extensive support including our 10-week leader certification course and the ability to collaborate with USA-NPN staff and other leaders via a listserv and online forum. We will also maintain a wide range of updating training, outreach, and educational materials including print, online, and in video/audio formats and an online, self-paced Observer Certification Course. We will also continue to offer a range of data collection campaigns tailored to garner data on particular species or seasonal events. We are currently offering eight such campaigns (https://www.usanpn.org/nn/campaigns).We will maintain several data access including an online visualization tool (https://data.usanpn.org/vis-tool/#/), a GUI-based data query and download interface for observational data (https://data.usanpn.org/observations/get-started), a GUI-based interface for downloading raster or image files of gridded maps (https://www.usanpn.org/geoserver-request-builder), and an R library (rnpn). This will involve periodic updates to underlying software and hardware as well as improvements to the tools, as needed.Existing real-time phenology maps and short-term forecast maps will continue to be generated following existing workflows. These are detailed in Crimmins et al. (2017, 2020) and at https://www.usanpn.org/data/new_data_products.To grow adoption of USA-NPN data, resources, and tools, we will continue to engage frequently with science, research, educator, and other end-user communities. We currently achieve this through a series of informal working groups that meet regularly, by supporting a Local Phenology Leaders community of practice, by attending professional society meetings and gatherings of management communities (e.g., the Southwest Vegetation Cooperative Weed Management meetings), through targeted surveys seeking feedback on data products and tools, and by communicating to various user communities through several bi-monthly newsletters and social media. All of these activities will be continued, with priority given to communities focused on topical areas our team previously identified as high priority (e.g., invasive species, insect pollinators, aeroallergens, disease vectors; USA-NPN 2020).