Welcome to 2013...may it bring you much goodness. We are grateful to count you among our partners, colleagues, and friends, and look forward to wonderful collaborations in this year.
I'm very excited to share that our website redesign and overhaul is set to go live this month! We have split the Nature's Notebook interface apart from the USA-NPN website, in attempt to improve navigation for users. The new site will also feature a fresh look and content, improved organization, and--I'm most excited about this--ways for participants to track their progress toward individual goals as well as community goals. Participants will be able to earn "badges" for accomplishments as well. We will be piloting a few badges this spring for some of our target species...I can also envision opportunities for badges for accomplishments in collaboration with partner groups such as yourself. If this sounds intriguing to you, please let me know!
We've got a lot of other great enhancements described below that are designed to improve your experience with us. If you have any questions, comments, or other ideas you think we should consider, I'd love to hear from you!
The newly unveiled USA-NPN data download tool enables you to extract records from the National Phenology Database by species, state or region, date range, species type, phenophase, and more. Get precisely what you're after - quickly!
Smartphone upgrade due in April
Log observations to NN even when out of cell range
Have you ever tried to enter Nature's Notebook observations from your smartphone, only to be stymied by a lack of cell coverage? No longer! As of April 1st, Android users be able to enter observations via smartphone in the field, even when out of cell range! Please stay tuned for a comparable improvement for iPhones and iPads.
This year, we'll be emphasizing phenology monitoring of several important species, including cloned lilacs and dogwoods, common lilacs, and several regionally important maple, oak, and poplar ("MOP") species. We'd love to roll out invitations for participation in partnership with your organization - if this sounds interesting, please drop me a line and we can discuss opportunities!
The interactive data visualization tool on the USA-NPN website is a powerful mechanism for demonstrating to observers that their data are valuable. Getting comfortable with the tool can be daunting... but we can help! If you'd like a personalized walk-through of the tool, let us know! We'd be happy to schedule a webinar to suit your skill level and schedule.
Jeong et. al, in press, Geophysical Research Letters. This analysis uses contemporary data collected through the efforts of Nature's Notebook. These researchers used NN data to reparameterize and improve a local species-specific budburst model, and then used the resultant macroscale model to generate future regional predictions of budburst for 5 common eastern deciduous forest tree species driven by CMIP5 climate scenarios.
Phenology and Climate Change, 2012. Edited by X. Zhang, InTech. This open access book "summarizes recent progresses in the understanding of seasonal variation in animals and plants and its correlations to climate variables."
Thanks for being part of the USA-NPN community! It's great to have you here. Enjoy the fall, and look for your upcoming issue of The Connection, USA-NPN's quarterly e-newsletter for partners, in a few months.
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Customized Data Download Tool
Join us in tracking these important species!
Phenology and Climate Change
