A circle divided into four sections, one for each season of the year. Buds and flowers mature in spring. Fruit develops and ripens during summer. Leaves and ripe fruit drop to the ground during fall.
Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program. Harlemville, New York
Phenology is the study of events in the life cycles of plants and animals as related to seasonal changes. Examples of life events include the mating call of spring peepers, butterfly sightings in summer, the first red leaves of fall and birds flying south before winter. Temperature and precipitation fluctuations are examples of seasonal climate changes. In Martin Van Buren’s day, gardeners and farmers recorded what was happening in nature. People relied on historical data (The Cultivator and Farmer’s Almanac) to schedule work from planting season through the summer to harvest time.
Today, citizen scientists study phenology as a way to document the impacts of climate change on plants and animals. Comparing past and present observations reveals how climate change is shifting the timing of seasonal events and impacting agriculture, including pollination of fruit trees in the spring and harvest deadlines before the first frost in late fall. We currently monitor nine species of plants that were on the landscape in the 1840s, including a sycamore tree that was here when the historic house was built in 1797.Be a citizen scientist and observe trees in your own neighborhood! Observations are recorded online at Nature’s Notebook, a project of the USA National Phenology Network.
