1. Jake F. Weltzin United States Geological Survey Mark D. Schwartz University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee www.usanpn.org The RCN & the USA-NPN Founding & Current Status

2. USA-NPN Development History DateEvent 1956-1961Regional lilac networks founded across USA 1987Schwartz takes charge of eastern lilac network 1994Schwartz (1994) proposes national network concept February 2002Schwartz starts building USA-NPN infrastructure November 2004Betancourt and Schwartz begin discussion December 2004Prototype USA-NPN web page launched August 2005First USA-NPN Planning Workshop (Tucson, AZ) March 2006USA-NPN Implementation Team Meeting (Tucson) August-September 2006USGS and Univ. of Arizona approved Nat. Coord. Office plan October 2006Second USA-NPN Planning Workshop (Milwaukee, WI) December 2006RCN (Res. Coord. Network, $500K/5 years) funded by NSF January 2007USA-NPN Nat. Coord. Office opened and staffed in Tucson August 2007First USA-NPN RCN Annual Meeting (Milwaukee)

3. USA-NPN Development History DateEvent August 2007Executive Director Jake Weltzin assumes position January 2008Founding Board of Directors (BOD) meeting (Tucson) May 2008New web pages launched for initial testing September 2008Second USA-NPN RCN Annual Meeting (Milwaukee) September 2008USA-NPN Constitution approved by Founding BOD January 2009Constitutional Board of Directors take office February 2009Expanded USA-NPN Plant Phenology Program launched March 2009Data ingest module added to USA-NPN web pages May 2009Cloned lilacs available for direct sale to the public July 2009USA-NPN registered observers reach 2500 nationwide October 2009Third USA-NPN RCN Annual Meeting (Milwaukee) February 2010Planned launch of USA-NPN Animal Phenology Program

4. “Phenology…is perhaps the simplest process in which to track changes in the ecology of species in response to climate change.” (IPCC 2007)

5. A new data resource—a national network of integrated phenological observations across space and time Key Goal Understand how plants, animals and landscapes respond to environmental variation and climate change

6. Create a scientifically based phenology network with broad participation Create and maintain a national phenology information management system Develop and promote standardized monitoring protocols Integrate observations of plants, animals & landscapes across space & time Create decision support tools for application of phenology data Core functions

7. National-scale science and monitoring initiative Agencies, NGOs, academia, the public Integrates with other science/monitoring networks Target: 100,000 observation locations Plants + animals; contemporary + legacy data Education & outreach Integration across spatial and temporal scales Business to Business + Business to Customer NPN in a nutshell

8. Key sponsors and collaborators…

9. Native American Tribes Scientists Specialized Networks Specialized Networks Public Agencies Public Agencies NGOs Educator s Citizen Scientist s Citizen Scientist s National Coordinating Office Information Management Monitoring Programs Communications Resource Managers Services for stakeholders

10. Beginning to advanced protocols Public, managers & scientists 215 specified species Status monitoring Sample intensity + absence data Plant Phenology Monitoring System

11. 158 species selected according to a priori criteria 120 expert reviewers Standardized monitoring protocols Independent review workshop 2010 as on-line beta Animal Phenology Monitoring System

12. Scaling of in-situ observations Validation of remote imagery Development of standards Information & data clearinghouse Research directions and priorities Land-surface Phenology Program 2005 Start of Season (SOS)

14. Create a National Phenology Information Management System Create a National Phenology Monitoring System Develop Partnerships Facilitate Outreach and Education Facilitate Research Facilitate Decision Support Strategic Plan Elements

15. Information management Decision- support Research Education Search Synthesis Visualizations Work platform Datasets Products NCO Information Management System Data Contemp- orary Legacy Partners Ancillary Data curation User interface Databases USA National Phenology Network Metadata

16. Role of NCO @ RCN and NPA RCN meeting support RCN web-page (www.usanpn.org/?q=rcn-2009)www.usanpn.org/?q=rcn-2009 Agenda Logistics Products Webinars Facilitate NPA Information management Tools Communications Science expertise Programmatic planning/development (you talk, we listen)