The USA National Phenology Network is hoping to recruit 100,000 citizen scientists to monitor climate impacts on plants, animals and landscapes.  They want to enlist regular citizen-gardeners, nonprofit groups, schools, government agencies, anyone who is will to volunteer to monitor and record data in order to be able to determine the specific responses of the changing climate on life-cycle timing.  According to an article in the Seattle Times, "phenology is the study of life-cycle timing, from bird migrations and tadpole metamorphosis to the explosion of wildflowers in mountain meadows. Researchers are discovering that even tiny changes in temperature can disrupt that timing, pushing some species toward extinction and favoring others."  Lisa Crozier, a research ecologist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle says, "Temperature governs every single biological reaction."  To volunteer or to share existing data, contact the USA-NPN. 

Project BudBurst, a part of the phenology network, also gathers plant observations but does not require as much record-keeping.  The article highlights Valerie Hilt, a Port Angeles great-grandmother and one of the last remaining lilac watchers in a network that once included 2500 volunteers.  These types of databases, rare in the U.S. but far more common in Europe, have documented that the onset of spring is now about a week earlier than it was 50 years ago.   "A difference of a few degrees or days may seem inconsequential, but timing is everything for species like the pied flycatchers that migrate between Africa and the Netherlands. The birds used to arrive in Europe and nest in time for their chicks to take advantage of a seasonal caterpillar explosion. But the caterpillars now peak 16 days earlier. As a result, chicks are starving and some flycatcher populations have plummeted 90 percent."  Jake Weltzin of the U.S. Geological Survey, executive director of the Tucson, Ariz.,-based phenology network, says, "These mismatches in timing could be happening all over.  But many changes are going unnoticed, because so few people have been looking in a systematic way.