Preliminary Analysis on Phenological Data of Plants in an Urban Environment

Phenology is the study of the influence of climate on periodic life cycle events of plants and animals, a discipline that has important applications in several research fields like Agrometeorology, Aerobiology, and climate change impact on the environment. Many studies have investigated the relationship between plant phenology and rising temperatures, however, even if the most evident effect of global warming is the increasing of heat island effect in urban areas, a few studies have focused on the impact of climate change on urban plants. In this type of research, monitoring and data collection activities are the most challenging and resource demanding. In 2004, the Institute of Biometeorology started a project aiming to test if the use of an Internet software application could improve phenological data collection by volunteers' participation. A prototype was developed and used to collect observations on the timing of the main phenological phases of plant species commonly widespread in the city of Florence. In this chapter the architecture of the system and the experience of the project is presented. Data on the timing of spring flowering of two species (early spring flowering Prunus pissardii and late spring flowering Tilia x europaea) are presented. Finally, preliminary results on the analysis of the relationship between the timing of flowering of the two species and the average monthly temperature are discussed.