walkswithjuniper

[walkswithjuniper]

common bluebell 04/18

[walkswithjuniper]

[walkswithjuniper]

[walkswithjuniper]

scarlet leather flower 04/25

[walkswithjuniper]

An Introduction - Budburst

Website:

The Issue:

The cherry blossoms were going to peak early this year, and news sources from all over the capital region highlighted this as a harbinger of climate change. While an earlier Cherry BlossomFest may not seem like a big deal, last year saw Kyoto, Japan record their earliest peak bloom in 1,200 years (Christidis et al., 2022) (Primack et al., 2023). While cherry blossom trees are known to be very sensitive to temperature this, this issue has been observed and studied for years in the field of phenology - the timing of biological events - in numerous plants and animals.

Plants, especially wildflowers and native plants, face a number of environmental challenges, including changes in temperature and precipitation patterns, habitat loss and fragmentation, and increased competition from invasive species; for which we may see declines in plant populations, reduced genetic diversity in plants, reduced pollination, and overall an altered ecosystem (Willis et al., 2008) (Willis et al., 2010) (Inouye, 2022).

This is where Budburst comes in. Using phenology in the analysis of local plants over time, scientists are able to track the effects of climate change in cross-walking the data compiled by Budburst participants and other open-source information such as temperature and precipitation records. It also allows for the identification and tracking of the spread of invasive plant species.

Citations:

Christidis, Nikolaos, et al. “Human Influence Increases the Likelihood of Extremely Early Cherry Tree Flowering in Kyoto.” Environmental Research Letters, vol. 17, no. 5, May 2022, p. 054051. Institute of Physics, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac6bb4.

Inouye, David W. “Climate Change and Phenology.” WIREs Climate Change, vol. 13, no. 3, 2022, p. e764. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.764.

Primack, Richard, et al. “How Climate Change Is Throwing off Key Timing for Wildflowers and Trees in Spring.” PBS NewsHour, 19 Mar. 2023, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/how-climate-change-is-throwing-off-key-timing-for-wildflowers-and-trees-in-spring.

Willis, Charles G., Brad R. Ruhfel, et al. “Favorable Climate Change Response Explains Non-Native Species’ Success in Thoreau’s Woods.” PLOS ONE, vol. 5, no. 1, Jan. 2010, p. e8878. PLoS Journals, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0008878.

Willis, Charles G., Brad Ruhfel, et al. “Phylogenetic Patterns of Species Loss in Thoreau’s Woods Are Driven by Climate Change.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 105, no. 44, Nov. 2008, pp. 17029–33. pnas.org (Atypon), https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0806446105.

The Project:

Created by the Chicago Botanic Gardens; Budburst is a "community-focused, data-driven approach to plant conservation" platform that allows users to take photos natively in-app and upload photos from their camera roll to document the natural beauty of plants around them.

The app allows for 3 types of observation reports: phenology, pollinator, and milkweeds & monarchs. After answering a set of multiple choice questions with an option to include detail shots, the observations are added to an interactive map to allow users to see where they have previously made observations and easily return at a later date for continued observation throughout the plant's life cycle in order to help track the effects of climate change.

Participation Plan:

I incorporated my participation in this citizen science project into walks with my dog, Juniper. I was already taking her for walks around my community 3 times a day so all it took was taking an additional 10 seconds to take a picture of plants along our routes. I took pictures and completed reports on at least 3 different plants a day over the course of my participation in the project.

[walkswithjuniper]

Participation Journal

Did you have to do any training before you could participate? Describe that.

There wasn't any training for participants before we began contributing.

Share your experiences actually participating in the project – are there things you found particularly interesting about it? Any specific experiences you want to share? Describe what you actually did, and how it went!

Participating in this project was simple but a lot of fun as it allowed me to slow down and appreciate the beauty of the world around me and led me to several gems in my neighborhood. I came across 2 monarch way stations and a pocket park dedicated to the native plants of Virginia. It also lead me to doing further research on the plants my neighbors use to landscape their front gardens, and to my pleasant surprise, many of them are also Virginia native or broadly Mid-Atlantic native vegetation.

Include dates and times that you actively participated in this project (including training)

March 27, 2023 - April 26, 2023

Is this a project you’re considering staying with after this course ends? Why or why not?

I have considered and will continue to contribute to the budburst project, just not as frequently. It's quick and simple to do, and I already take pictures of plants and flowers anyway and they clog my camera roll! It would be nice to help scientist in the mean time as well.

[walkswithjuniper]

Public Outreach

What is the user experience like? How is this project advertised to the public? Could that be improved?

Budburst uses an app with an intuitive UX design that allows participants to join the ranks of 21,772 current users by simply downloading the app from the App Store. I haven't seen it advertised in any way so even promoting it outside of Chicago & the community that frequents the Botanic Gardens. This is an easy tool for kids to use, so implementing partnerships with school districts would be an easy way to inform the public of it's existence.

Do you think this project has a positive impact on conservation in general (from an outreach/educational perspective)? Could this be improved?

I think that this project on its own has a marginal impact on conservation through the lens of outreach and education due to the lack of direct education and limited reach/scope. The app rarely provides a completed "tips for identification" tab, nor does it include facts, figures, or really anything engaging about the plant being observed or its impact on the environment. Ensuring that at least the tips for identification tab is complete would definitely be helpful for engagement and education.

Do you think there are goals for this project beyond the stated scientific goals? Is the focus more on collecting scientific data, or engaging the public? Do you think that there is anything problematic about their focus?

I would say that the project has also developed a space for engaging the public with one another by introducing a group function and challenges. From what I understand, these groups do not allow you to chat with other participants but allow you to see their observations. The ethos of engaging with the community appears to be more extractive than collaborative as participants send observations/data to the repository and receive nothing in return.

In general, in terms of the outreach and educational value of this project, are there things that you’d change if you were in charge?

I would focus on citizen education for the sake of the accuracy of the collected data. Plants have hundreds of varieties, sometimes making it difficult for you average citizen to correctly phenotype them. Providing some sort of training or at minimum, complete descriptors of the plants would be the first change that I made.

[walkswithjuniper]

Project Design

FAQ:

What happens to the data you’ll be collecting?

The data collected is included in a larger dataset accessible to everyone. Links to the data sets can be found here: https://budburst.org/data

How is it used?

The data is open source and can be used by anyone for any purpose, however the Budburst project website highlights its use by scientists and researchers for climate research

Are the project managers losing any opportunities in how they use the data?

The project managers aren't losing many opportunities in how they're using the data as they are more of a platform or a tool than a stand-alone project with stated research goals.

Are there aspects of the project design you think might be problematic? Things you’d change?

While great in theory, the praxis of this project and the accuracy of the data produced is concerning for several reasons:

The budburst app has a tool that helps with the identification of plants and even includes a section on tips for help with identification. However, in more than 70% of the observations I made, there was nothing in that section. This is an issue as it may lead to mis-identification of the plant and include inaccurate information in the data set

The phenology reports include a written description of the phenophases of a plant's life that may not be obvious to the obvious layperson, such as what stage the fruiting bodies are in or if the leaves are in early growth or mid-growth.

Are there aspects of the project design you think are innovative or clever?

There's a section for "challenges," which allows groups who are conducting research to put a call to action out to the already existing user base of Budburst to contribute directly to their projects in their observations. There is also a group function so users are able to see other's observations which could be useful in a classroom setting.

How have the results of this project been shared (or will be shared in the future)?Is the focus on communicating directly with other scientists? With the public? Both? Include links to whatever results have been publicly shared (whether that’s linking to abstracts from peer-reviewed papers, or to outreach materials, or to something else).

This project's stated purpose is to connect scientist and citizens to the natural world and observe the effects of climate change. As mentioned before, the data is free and open-access so anyone can use it however they would like. Some papers that explicitly cite bud burst's datasets include:

Johnson, K (2016) Real Life Science with Dandelions and Project BudBurst J. Microbiol. Biol. Educ. 17(1): 115-116

Havens, K and Henderson, S (2013) Citizen Science Takes Root American Scientist 101(5): 378-385

Dickinson JL, Shirk J, Bonter D, Bonney R, Crain RL, Martin J, Phillips T, Purcell K (2012) The current state of citizen science as a tool for ecological research and public engagement Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10(6) 291-297

Henderson, S. (2012) Citizen Science Comes of Age Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10(6):283

Henderson, S., Ward D., Meymaris K., Alaback P., & Havens K. (2012) Project BudBurst: Citizen Science for All Seasons (Ed.). Citizen Science: Public Collaboration in Environmental Research. 50-57

Newman G, Wiggins A, Crall A, Graham E, Newman S, Crowston K (2012) The future of citizen science: emerging technologies and shifting paradigms Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10(6) 298-304

Schwartz MD, Betancourt JL, Weltzin JF From Caprio's lilacs to the USA National Phenology Network Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10(6) 324-327

Switzer A, Schwille K, Russell E, Edelson D National Geographic FieldScope: a platform for community geography Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10(6) 334-335

Yanenko, O and Schlieder, C (2012) Enhancing the Quality of Volunteered Geographic Information: A Constraint-based Approach In: Bridging the Geographic Information Sciences, Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, 2012, Part 8, 429-446

Chung U, Mack L, Yun JI, Kim S-H (2011) Predicting the Timing of Cherry Blossoms in Washington, DC and Mid-Atlantic States in Response to Climate Change PLoS ONE 6(11): e27439.

Wolkovich EM, and Cleland EE, (2011) The phenology of plant invasions: a community ecology perspective Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 9(5): 287-294