Analysis phenological trends based on the aquatic environments of the European Long Term Ecosystem Network (LTER)

In recent years, phenology has been proposed as an indicator to monitor systematically the state of the ecosystem and to detect changes triggered by perturbation of the environmental conditions. Recorded changes in the seasonal timing allowed often to evaluate re-organizations of communities and drastic alterations to ecosystem structure. The European LTER represents one of the most important network in the collection of long time series ecological in Europe. EnvEurope Life+ project is working to integrate and harmonize long-term ecological research initiatives at European level, focusing on understanding the status, changes and trends of ecosystems. This preliminary work give an example on how the Europe LTER networks can make a contribution to compare the effect of changes in physical forcing or climatic modes on the ecosystem around Europe. The aims of this study are to (i) provide a standardized assessment of the rates phenological indexes in the LTER Europe aquatic sites (ii) evaluate changes in phenological indexes in relationship with ecological drivers (climate indices and physical parameters). For this work were collected monthly data from 15 LTER sites for a period from the '80s to today. Before to start with statistical analysis, harmonization of units of measure and selection of the sites has been performed. Will present the results of the descriptive analysis, and the results about patterns and rates of phenological indexes.