How diverse botanical collections and citizen science inform predictions of tree phenology and vulnerability

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Brendon Reidy, Christine R Rollinson and Lucien Fitzpatrick, Center for Tree Science, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL

Background/Question/Methods
Tree phenology can be used as a bioindicator for climate change response and to model habitat suitability in the face of climatic changes. The Morton Arboretum uses tree phenology observations to inform research and conservation of global tree species. We use citizen science data collected from the USA National Phenology Network and our citizen science volunteers to investigate the timing and predictability of tree phenology events and climate vulnerability. We focus on Quercus (Oak) due to its ubiquity across the globe and its diversity across its clade and within biomes. The Morton Arboretum is the institutional lead partnered with The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, The IUCN SSC Global Tree Specialist Group, and Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) to assess, review, contribute to and facilitate IUCN Red List threat assessments for priority Quercus (Oak) trees globally. The diversity of botanical collections at The Morton Arboretum is being used by this consortium for two major objectives; build a robust phenology profile for species otherwise sparsely observed, and to engage non-scientist audiences in ecological and climate change research through interactive and collaborative citizen and community driven science.



Results/Conclusions
Phenology monitoring at The Morton Arboretum between 2017 and 2021 included 51 species from the genus Quercus alone, representing approximately 10% of all extant species, including rare or endangered species. We used the observation of phenology across Quercus species to examine phenology trends. We found that bud burst occurred nearly two weeks earlier in 2017 than 2018 and 10 days earlier in 2019 than in 2018. First fall color was observed nearly 10 days earlier in 2020 than in previous years. Additionally, we used data from The Morton Arboretum combined with spatial patterns of related taxa found in citizen science databases such as the USA National Phenology Network to improve phenology predictions for sparsely-observed species by as much as 30 days and an average of 3.4 days for budburst and 14.1 days for leaf out Since 2017 volunteers have collected over 61,000 observations and collectively accrued over 2,200 hours collecting data We have also utilized our phenology monitoring program with local teachers and are expecting 20 students monitoring phenology this year. In the future, we will use phenology to assess and predict the vulnerability of botanical collections and species populations to near and long-term seasonal events.