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By Mari N. Jensen
April 30, 2007

Project BudBurst is a nation-wide project that tracks when plants leaf out and bloom.

The project, just launched this month, runs through June 30, 2007. Anyone can participate just by signing up on the Web site, "http://www.budburst.org", and clicking on the Participate! button.

The site makes it easy for people to identify their plant and pinpoint the plant's location on the map of the U.S. The Web site also has information for teachers and for students.

"Various types of groups all over the country are involved," said Barron J. Orr, an assistant professor of arid lands studies and a geospatial extension specialist at The University of Arizona in Tucson.

"In my case, the focus is on after-school programs and things students can do with their parents."

At the end of June, the project scientists will produce maps of when plants bloom and leaf out all over the U.S. by compiling the information submitted by thousands of citizen scientists. This year's information will be compared to historical records to see how the nation's backyards, parks and forests are changing.

Some of Arizona's many plants that project scientists want to learn about include the saguaro cactus, the common dandelion, pink evening primrose, white clover, shrubby cinquefoil, chokecherry, big sagebrush and yarrow.

The project will continue for many years, said Orr, a member of the USA-National Phenology Network's Citizen Science Working Group. "It will help us understand our changing environment. We have good maps of vegetation, but we have very little data on trends. We need something to serve as an indicator of changes through time and across landscapes.

"It's fun, it's easy, and it's essential for scientific understanding."

To learn more about large-scale changes in plants' behavior over time requires taking thousands of measurements about many, many different plants all over the country during the spring. So Project BudBurst decided to enlist citizen scientists.

Similar projects have been going on in Europe for years, Orr said. "They have contributions from thousands and thousands of citizen scientists."

Biologists refer to the timing of seasonal events such as flowering or the first unfurling of leaves as phenology. Humans have used such well-known clues to the onset of spring for centuries. Phenological patterns can help time the planting of crops or flowers, track the effect of climate change on plants and animals, anticipate wildflower displays and make predictions about fuel loads and wildfires.

Project BudBurst is a collaborative effort of the Chicago Botanic Garden, Plant Conservation Alliance, ESRI, the National Science Foundation, the USA-National Phenology Network, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, The University of Arizona, the University of Montana, the University of California, Santa Barbara, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the National Science Foundation and Plant Conservation Alliance provided funding for the spring 2007 event.

Project BudBurst grew out of a workshop held October 2006 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S Geological Survey, National Science Foundation and NASA funded the workshop.

Project BudBurst is part of the USA-National Phenology Network, a consortium of scientists, natural resource managers and database and web application developers. The network's purpose is collecting and analyzing data and making it publicly available to better understand and adapt to changes in the environment.

NPN's National Coordinating Office is located in The University of Arizona's Office of Arid Lands Studies, part of UA's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Funding for the national office is provided by the U.S. Geological Survey, with additional support from UA's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and College of Science, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth and Office of Arid Lands Studies.