When I visit Phenology Core sites in the forest, I locate a study plant and determine what stage of development its vegetation and reproduction it is in. The forest has data for the previous seasons, and for earlier in this season so that we can see how the forest has changed from year-to-year, and how the forest is progressing this year.
Phenology is very sensitive to climate and because the Andrews Forest has a lot of funny microclimates (as a result of the complex topography of the region), this is evident just within the forest. But how will the Andrews react to larger-scale climate change?
The Andrews is part of a Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) study.
http://andrewsforest.oregonstate.edu/lter/index.cfm?topnav=180
