Join Amanda Cantrell, a Board Member of Indiana Phenology for our March program. Phenology is the study of the timing of recurring plant and animal life cycle stages, such as leafing, flowering, and fruiting in plants and migration and reproduction in animals.  These changes are driven by climate and other abiotic factors and govern how living organisms interact with each other and even the cycling of water, carbon, and other elements within local and global ecosystems.

Our climate is warming at an unprecedented rate due to human activities such as the production and burning of fossil fuels.  In this presentation, we will explore how changes in phenology, such as earlier Spring leafing and flowering or insect emergence driven by warming temperatures, can be indicators of climate change’s impact on ecosystems and help elucidate downstream effects on abundance, diversity, and the interaction of species.  You will also learn how you as a citizen scientist can help track these changes through phenology observation to build a local dataset useful to scientists, policymakers, land managers, and conservationists to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

This will be an online program using Zoom. Participants will register using Eventbrite and there will be a limit of 90. To register go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/examining-the-ecological-consequences-of-climate-change-through-phenology-tickets-138299099329. Once we are close to the program date, you will receive an email with an invite to a Zoom meeting.