A useful purpose for this blog is to record the first occurrence of biological events in a species life cycle. Phenology is the term used to describe this and these events are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate.
Examples include the date of emergence of leaves and flowers, the first flight of butterflies and the first appearance of
migratory birds, the date of leaf colouring and fall in deciduous trees, the dates of egg-laying of birds and amphibia, or the timing of the developmental cycles of
temperate-zone
honey bee colonies. In the scientific literature on
ecology, the term is used more generally to indicate the time frame for any seasonal biological phenomena, including the dates of last appearance (e.g., the seasonal phenology of a species may be from April through September).
Because many such phenomena are very sensitive to small variations in
climate, especially to temperature, phenological records can be a useful
proxy for temperature in
historical climatology, especially in the study of
climate change and
global warming. For example, viticultural records of grape harvests in Europe have been used to reconstruct a record of summer growing season temperatures going back more than 500 years.
[3][4] In addition to providing a longer historical baseline than instrumental measurements, phenological observations provide high
temporal resolution of ongoing changes related to
global warming.
[5][6]
