USA-NPN Research Coordination Network
Workshop Overview
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
May 22-24, 2012
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Workshop Goal:
To identify key strategies for moving the field of phenology forward, while building upon the
work of previous RCN workshops. In doing so, we aspire to bolster the science and data-oriented
goals of the USA-National Phenology Network as a mechanism for supporting the long-term
relevance and sustainability of the Network and the field of phenology at-large. Specifically, we
will harness the collective intellectual capacity of workshop participants (e.g., environmental
scientists, resource managers, and members of the Network’s Advisory Committee) to identify
tangible, strategic actions for near-term implementation.
Workshop Objectives:
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Engage all participants in identification of grand challenges related to phenology research
and applications relevant to decision-making at the national scale.
Engage all participants in contributing to developing a catalogue of data products and
developing plans for the strategic growth of the National Phenology Database (NPDb).
Members of the AC participate in the working groups and RCN gatherings; members also
attend a one-day meeting with National Coordinating Office (NCO) executive and senior
staff to facilitate advancement of newly revised USA-NPN Strategic Plan.
Working Session 1: Grand Challenges in Phenology Research & Applications
As stated by the USA-NPN Implementation Team on March 23, 2006 in Tucson, Arizona:
Phenology is a far-reaching component of environmental science but is poorly
understood. Critical questions (or, grand challenges) include how environmental factors
affect seasonal timing in different organisms, and how those factors vary in importance
on different spatial and temporal scales and across managed and unmanaged ecosystems
in different parts of the U.S. Moreover, we need to know how phenological variations
and change affect the growth, abundance, distribution and diversity of organisms, their
ecological functions and trophic interactions in the environment, and their effects on
fluxes in water, energy, and chemical elements at various scales. With sufficient
observations and understanding, phenology can drive ecological forecast models with
both scientific and practical application, can be used as an indicator and predictor for
other processes and variables of societal importance at the national scale, and can inform
policy, planning and management in an uncertain and changing world.
The first interactive session of the RCN workshop will focus on further developing grand
challenges.
A major strategic goal of the USA-NPN is to optimize the National Phenology Database (NPDb)
to ensure that the Network remains valuable and useful to scientists and to resource managers by
addressing critical scientific and management challenges and by producing high priority data
products now and in the future. To accomplish this, a sufficient density of observations across
space and time must be available in the NPDb. Furthermore, the nature of the database inquiries
will depend on the goals and objectives of the individuals and partners posing the questions.
Two RCN working groups were organized during Spring 2012 to begin addressing the issues of
strategically growing the database in order to generate research and management-relevant data
products (Figure 1).
The second and third interactive sessions of the RCN workshop will build on the work of these
working groups and engage participants in identifying how the USA-NPN can begin to meet these
needs.
Figure 1. Conceptual
diagram of goals and
inter-relationships
between the USA-NPN’s
RCN workshop sessions.
Working Session 2: Identifying Data Products
The USA-NPN aims to generate, host and disseminate a wide range of information on phenology
to the public, researchers, land managers and policy makers. Some of this information will be in
the form of data products derived from the USA-NPN’s NPDb, established cloned plant
networks, and from external data sources. Data are already available from the USA-NPN’s
website in a raw form but we would like to provide refined products with value to a range of
users, in which the data provided are accompanied by measures of uncertainty, contextual
information (metadata) and the justification for the methods used to generate the data product.
Examples include the Schwartz et al. (2006)1 suite of Spring Indices or another gridded analysis
of the NPDb data. USA-NPN has limited support for personnel and thus needs a relatively short
list of high-priority products that the organization can produce in a timely fashion.
In light of this limitation, the Data Products working group aimed to (1) create a list of potentially
useful data products that USA-NPN might be able to produce and or help to disseminate, (2)
indicate which stakeholders or interested parties might find these products useful, (3) estimate
how much time and effort it would take to produce these products, and (4) prioritize a short list of
products which will later be described in the form of a data products catalogue.
1
Schwartz, M. D., R. Ahas, and A. Aasa. 2006. Onset of spring starting earlier across the northern
hemisphere. Global Change Biology 12:343-351.
At the RCN workshop, participants will break into three, thematic (e.g., bioclimate, community
ecology, and wildlife management) groups (not necessarily by specific expertise). First, groups
will review the preliminary list of data products provided by the working group and add any
additional products that they can describe and justify as high-priority. Participants will then link
the identified data products to ‘grand challenges’ and to more specific research and management
questions in order to identify their clear value to the community.
To facilitate prioritization, participants will also identify products that serve several goals and
subsequently describe the highest priority products in terms of its potential use, spatial and
temporal resolution, and general mode of calculation. Ideally, each break-out group in this session
will identify 1-2 high priority products that can potentially be produced with data in the NPDb.
This exercise will guide the subsequent RCN workshop session focused on identifying and
describing the NPDb data specifications required to generate the products.
Working Session 3: Strategic Growth of the Database
Ideally, the USA-NPN database and suite of derived products will be sufficiently flexible to
address the demands of many partners and user groups and to address scientific questions
representing multiple ecological, spatial, and temporal levels. To facilitate the development of
these products, the Strategic Growth of the Database working group (SGDb-WG) developed a
simple decision framework as an approach for identifying descriptions of the data needed to
produce a range of high priority data products.
During the SGDb session, participants in three break-out groups will test this decision
framework; group themes will follow the morning session. In turn, groups will generate
descriptions of the data required to generate the high priority data products identified in the
morning workshop session.
To facilitate the generation of data descriptions, each high priority data product will have an
associated data use “scenario” or narrative that describes the research question and justification
behind the product. Participants review and clarify details such as the goals and objectives of the
requesting organization or agency, the spatial and temporal scale of interest, and the scientific
questions they hope to address. NPDb data requirements then will be defined in terms of the
following attributes: phenophases, functional groups, and approximate spatial and temporal
density of observation sites (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Flow diagram of RCN workshop session focused on strategic growth of the National
Phenology Database.
We aim to produce one data requirement scenario per data product (with both optimum &
minimum descriptions) relative to database attributes. Participants will be discouraged from
focusing on discussions relative to the composition of the species list itself, and from making
plans for how data not currently in the NPDb will be gathered.
Post-workshop, the resultant data descriptions will be verified, refined, and implemented. This
will lead to the production of a series of priority data products designed to meet the needs of
partners and data end-users. Ultimately, identification of such data requirements will inform
future National Coordinating Office (NCO) observer recruitment and retention efforts (e.g.,
campaigns, calls-to-action, etc.).
Outcomes and Next Steps
By the end of the RCN workshop, we seek to have a number of tangible outcomes from the three
working sessions (Table 1). Ideally, these will serve as launching points for moving the field of
phenology forward; the collective capacity of the USA-NPN will catalyze this process.
Over the course of Summer 2012, we will prepare a workshop report that will be distributed to
participants and partners. In doing so, the NCO will evaluate outcomes of the working sessions
and develop a plan for implementing recommendations arising from the RCN workshop.
Table 1. Overview of workshop outcomes and next steps.
SESSION
1. Grand
Challenges in
Phenology
LEAD
Julio
Betancourt &
Geoff Henebry
OUTCOMES
Identification of Top 3-5
priorities for research
and management
NEXT STEPS
Short white paper entitled “Toward a
phenology research agenda for the
next decade”
2. USA-NPN Data
Products
Dave Moore
3-6 high priority data
products
Refinement and development of a
data product catalogue
3. Strategic Growth
of the Database
NCO Science
Staff
3-6 preliminary
scenarios for developing
database in support of
product development
Refinement and implementation of
data recommendations