Observations Captured at Hayes Arboretum Used for Scientific Research

The word “phenology” probably does not mean much to the majority of people, but is something we have all seen. Leaves changing colors, birds flying south, flowers blooming. Observing the changing of the seasons in relation to animals and plants is the essence of phenology. But Hayes Arboretum took these simple observations a step further.

In collaboration with the non-profit Indiana Phenology, Hayes staff and volunteers collected data weekly from 10 species of native trees on property. These observations were recorded in an app called Nature’s Notebook, a citizen science project of the USA National Phenology Network.

Recently, an article was published by Amanda Galliant and her colleagues that used data from the Nature’s Notebook app, which included some of the records collected at Hayes Arboretum this past year. The article is titled “Combined volunteer and ecological network observations show broad-scale temperature-sensitivity patterns for deciduous plant flowering and leaf-out times across the Eastern USA” and was published in the Journal of Ecology.

You can read the article online here: https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2745.70165

Want to help Hayes Arboretum as a citizen scientist? Check out how here: https://www.hayesarboretum.org/citizen-science