By Liv Monck-Whipp, Stewardship Coordinator

“Phenology” is the study of cyclic and periodic events in biological life cycles, especially with regard to how these events are influenced by seasons and climates. Some examples of phenological events are when birds begin to migrate, when trees start to produce buds, or when leaves change colour in the fall.

As we move from summer to fall, it’s the perfect time to watch for the many phenological events that happen during this transition. When I’m out in nature these days, I’m paying special attention to which plants are still flowering, or maybe even beginning to flower, and which are starting to produce seed. As Stewardship Coordinator for the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, I’m planning to work on ecological restoration projects on some of our conservation lands in the future. To do this, it is helpful to have detailed, local information about the timing of when different plants produce seed. There are many places to get this information, but more and more often, restoration practitioners are turning to iNaturalist for detailed, localized phenology.

If you are familiar with the iNaturalist website & app, you know that it’s a great place to record natural observations of the species you see. But you can take this one step further in contributing to community science by adding Annotations to observations that describe what life stage the organism was in when you took the observation. This page (What are the definitions of iNaturalist annotations? : iNaturalist Help) describes all the different annotations you can add. For flowering plants, the 4 options for annotations describe where the plant is at in its reproductive cycle – 1) flower buds, 2) flowers, 3) fruits/seeds, or 4) no flowers or fruits/seeds.

While there is potential for bias in the data when comparing between life stages (for example, flowers are pretty, so this life stage is often over-represented!), looking at seeding and flowering time across places can be informative. The charts below show the phenology of Red Maples, across all of Nova Scotia, in Victoria County only, and in Halifax County only. This tells me that if looking for Red Maple seed, in Victoria County, June is a good option, but in Halifax County, May could be a better time. This is just an example, but the more people who add annotations to observations, the more useful this data becomes. It can also be helpful for understanding how these patterns vary over time – especially when considering climate change.

To learn more, visit Phenology in Focus: Exploring Plant Cycles with iNaturalist · iNaturalist.

And to get started with using iNaturalist on Nature Trust conservation lands, visit our iNat page (with an introductory video from our Field Volunteer & Outreach Coordinator, Riki!).