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

Contents Summary I. Introduction II. Evolving modes of phenological study III. The phenocam approach IV. Applications of the phenocam method V. Looking forward Acknowledgements References SUMMARY: 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 phenological monitoring in 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.