Phenology is the study of when recurring biological events happen—when plants emerge and flower, when trees produce leaves, when insects become active, and when organisms prepare for winter.
As temperatures change, many of these events are happening earlier or later than they once did. Species do not always shift their timing at the same rate, however. A tree may leaf out earlier while an understory plant changes very little, or a bird may arrive before the insects it depends on have emerged. These mismatches can disrupt competition, pollination, predation, herbivory, and other relationships that help ecosystems function. The cohort will establish a long-term research program at the IU Research and Teaching Preserve to investigate these changes across an entire forest community. Rather than examining only one species or interaction, students will help connect observations from belowground soil communities to the forest canopy.
What will students investigate?
Student teams will help collect and analyze data in five interconnected research areas:
- Canopy trees: Tracking budburst, leaf development, flowering, and autumn leaf color and loss
- Understory plants: Monitoring emergence, flowering, fruiting, growth, and seasonal access to sunlight
- Soil invertebrates: Sampling and identifying arthropods and other invertebrates living in soil and leaf litter
- Aboveground invertebrates: Surveying ground-dwelling, flying, and vegetation-dwelling arthropods
- Species interactions: Studying pollination, predation, herbivory, and seed dispersal throughout the growing season
The first cohort will help develop and implement the project’s research protocols. Potential future cohorts could build upon this work, creating a long-term dataset that can reveal how environmental change is reshaping forest communities over time.
