Harnessing herbaria to advance plant phenology research under global change

Kai Zhu, Yiluan Song
New Phytologist 2023 (a Commentary)
Paper Code

Highlights

  • Park et al, 2023 used a large herbarium dataset to examine the interaction between urbanization and plant reproductive phenology.
  • Herbarium data offer unmatched long-term, global-scale records for studying phenological shifts, proving compelling evidence of climate change impacts.
  • We highlight new methods that are unlocking the potential of herbarium data, including advancements in digitization, machine learning, and crowd-sourcing.
  • We identified open questions that might be answered by herbarium data, on phenological mismatch, functional traits, and evolution.

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Digitized herbarium data are an invaluable source for phenological research under global change. Here we show an example of herbarium data for lilac (Syringa spp.), commonly used to study spring phenology.

Expanding NEON biodiversity surveys with new instrumentation and machine learning approaches

Justin Kitzes, Rachael Blake, Sara Bombaci, Melissa Chapman, Sandra M. Duran, Tao Huang, Maxwell B. Joseph, Samuel Lapp, Sergio Marconi, William K. Oestreich, Tessa A. Rhinehart, Anna K. Schweiger, Yiluan Song, Thilina Surasinghe, Di Yang, Kelsey Yule
Ecosphere 2021
Paper

Highlights

  • We reviewed data collection and research at the intersection of biodiversity, instrumentation, and machine learning at NEON sites
  • We surveyed methods that have been developed at other locations but could potentially be employed at NEON sites.
  • We elaborated on five fruitful future paths for automated biodiversity measurement at NEON sites.
  • I mainly contributed to discussing the path of expanded remote and ground-based measurements for plant biodiversity.

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Examples of phenology image and land–water interface image from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and Posey Creek NEON sites, both taken on Nov 1 2019.

Forest age improves understanding of the global carbon sink

Kai Zhu, Yiluan Song, Clara Qin
PNAS 2019 (a Commentary)
Paper

Highlights

  • Pugh et al., 2019 utilized a new global database of forest age to inform a vegetation model.
  • Regrowth forests constitute a carbon sink that is even greater than that of old-growth forests.
  • This study underscored the importance of forest age data and demographic processes in terrestrial biosphere modeling.
  • They challenged the traditional equilibrium view and revealed tht a much of the current global forest carbon sink is transient.
  • In light of their estimate of a smaller carbon sink than previously anticipated, even more immediate action on CO2 emission reduction may be justified.

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History of changing forests in New England.

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