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USA National Phenology Network The Nature's Notebook Plant and Animal Observing Program

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This presentation will guide you through the steps of selecting plant and/or animal species to observe.
This information is also available on USA-NPN website at www.usanpn.org.

In this presentation, we’ll focus on selecting plant and animal species. We’re presenting this as the second step in learning how to observe plant and animal phenology using Nature’s Notebook.

As a part of Nature’s Notebook, you are invited to observe both plants and animals, though you may choose to observe only plants or only animals. Recall the difference in the way we ask you to observe plants and animals using Nature’s Notebook:
For plants: Observe the same individual plants each time you visit your site. For example, observe the same red maple tree in your backyard all through the year.
For animals: Create a checklist of animal species and look for all of them each time you visit your site. For example, if your checklist includes robins, wood frogs, and tent caterpillars on it, record whether you saw or heard each of those species anywhere in your site each time you visited.

You can use the ‘Search Species to Monitor’ page on Nature’s Notebook to explore plant or animal species you might be able to observe in your area.

Using this search tool, you can search for only plants species, only animal species, or both.

When observing plants, we encourage observers to include ‘calibration species’ when possible. Our calibration species are a set of 20 plants that were selected to help "calibrate" phenological measurements across the USA. These species have broad distributions and are ecologically or economically important. The USA-NPN uses observations of these species to get the “big picture” of phenology across the nation. We need many observations of calibration species to understand the changes taking place in the timing of seasonal events across the nation, particularly in relation to climate change.

To see the list of calibration species, click “Show me only USA-NPN calibration species”

If you’re interested in observing plants, you might also want to participate in the Cloned Plants Project, which has been monitoring cloned lilacs across the country for over 50 years. Observations on cloned species enable scientists to exclude genetic variation when they look at plant responses to climate. You can buy a cloned lilac through Jung’s Nursery and submit your observations through our interface. To find out more select “Show me only Cloned Plants Projects species”, or go to www.usanpn.org/lilac.

Once you’ve picked a plant or animal species, click on the name to find out more about it.

Each plant or animal species has a unique page, called a “Profile Page”, which provides information including some basic information on identifying a species, information on why it’s important to monitor this species & where it’s found.

If you are observing animals, we recommend that you select several species that occur in your local area or in your state. Each time you make observations at your site, you’ll note whether you saw or heard any of these animals.
In this example, the observer opted to watch and listen for 7 animal species:

Make sure that you have correctly identified the plant and animal species at your site before reporting your observations for your species online.
We know it can be tricky to identify a plant or animal. Many communities also have gardening, birding, native plant or naturalist groups, cooperative extension offices, nature centers, local colleges, state or national parks, or wildlife refuges where you can find people to help identify plants or animals in your area. Herbaria, collections of preserved plant specimens, and herbarium staff can also be useful resources.

Additionally, there are many field guides and online resources that can help. Look for field guides at a local bookstore or online. Field guides that are particular to your region are most often the best.

You can find datasheets that will work for general plant groups on the Nature’s Notebook ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ page.

Once you have identified the plant, please check the phenophases for that species to make sure they are consistent with what you have been recording. If they are consistent, you can enter the data online. If they are not consistent, please do not enter your old observations. Instead, start fresh now that you have identified your plant.

The Nature’s Notebook list of recommended species includes plants and animals that are important to observe for a variety of reasons, including their ecological and economic importance, conservation value, importance as game species, association with health issues such as allergies, or importance to ecosystem services such as food supply. We are constantly working to revise and expand the list of species and welcome your suggestions for additions or other changes.
Please send your comments on our list of recommended species to [email protected].

In the meantime, if you would like to start observing a plant or animal not currently on our list of recommended species, you can observe that species using a datasheet appropriate for a similar species, and submit your observations to Nature’s Notebook later.

You may also consider participating in one of the many other observation programs that are tracking the phenology of particular groups of plants and animals.

This concludes our presentation on selecting plant and animal species. Thank you for your time and interest in our program!

File Type	application/vnd.ms-powerpoint
File Title	Generic Training Presentation
Author	Alyssa Rosemartin
Last Modified By	Theresa Crimmins
File Modified	2010-07-02
File Created	2009-09-25