Tracking seasonal rhythms of plants in diverse ecosystems with digital camera imagery

Global change is shifting the seasonality of vegetation in ecosystems around the globe. High-frequency digital camera imagery, and vegetation indices derived from that imagery, is facilitating better tracking of phenological responses to environmental variation. This method, commonly referred to as the “phenocam” approach, is well-suited to several specific applications, including: close-up observation of individual organisms; long-term canopy-level monitoring at individual sites; automated regional-to-continental scale observatory networks; and tracking responses to experimental treatments. Several camera networks are already well-established, and some camera records are a more than a decade long. These data can be used to identify the environmental controls on phenology in different ecosystems, which will contribute to the development of improved prognostic phenology models. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.