Comparing fruiting phenology across two historical datasets: Thoreau's observations and herbarium specimens

Fruiting remains under-represented in long-term phenology records, relative to leaf and flower phenology. Herbarium specimens and historical field notes can fill this gap, but selecting and synthesizing these records for modern-day comparison requires an understanding of whether different historical data sources contain similar information, and whether similar, but not equivalent, fruiting metrics are comparable with one another.

For 67 fleshy-fruited plant species, we compared observations of fruiting phenology made by Henry David Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts (1850s), with phenology data gathered from herbarium specimens collected across New England (mid-1800s to 2000s). To identify whether fruiting times and the order of fruiting among species are similar between datasets, we compared dates of first, peak and last observed fruiting (recorded by Thoreau), and earliest, mean and latest specimen (collected from herbarium records), as well as fruiting durations.

On average, earliest herbarium specimen dates were earlier than first fruiting dates observed by Thoreau; mean specimen dates were similar to Thoreau's peak fruiting dates; latest specimen dates were later than Thoreau's last fruiting dates; and durations of fruiting captured by herbarium specimens were longer than durations of fruiting observed by Thoreau. All metrics of fruiting phenology except duration were significantly, positively correlated within (r: 0.69-0.88) and between (r: 0.59-0.85) datasets.

Strong correlations in fruiting phenology between Thoreau's observations and data from herbaria suggest that field and herbarium methods capture similar broad-scale phenological information, including relative fruiting times among plant species in New England. Differences in the timing of first, last and duration of fruiting suggest that historical datasets collected with different methods, scales and metrics may not be comparable when exact timing is important. Researchers should strongly consider matching methodology when selecting historical records of fruiting phenology for present-day comparisons.