We are investigating the effects of climate change on common tree species of New England. We want to find out how rapidly trees are responding to warming temperatures across the region using a combination of remote sensing and observations on the ground.
This is where you come in! If you live in New England, we hope you will help us gather observations of leaf-out times of trees this coming spring to add to our database of current and historical observations from the region. We have selected a list of nine common tree species that are easy to identify. Your participation involves finding a tree of one or more of these species in some place that you visit regularly. We recommend finding and identifying trees now while they still have leaves, as it will be much easier than trying to do so in the spring when they don't have leaves. In the spring, please monitor the selected trees once or twice a week and look for the first signs of leaf out; these are young leaves emerging from the buds on at least three branches. Once your trees have leafed out, please send us the information that you collected (species, date and location) or enter it into the National Phenology Network database (using their link to the New England Leaf Out Project). The species we have chosen are: white oak (Quercus alba), red maple (Acer rubrum), sugar maple (Acer saccharum), black birch (Betula lenta), white birch (Betula papyrifera), American beech (Fagus grandifolia), sassafras (Sassafras albidum), big-toothed aspen (Populus grandidentata), shagbark hickory (Carya ovata). If this project interests you, please send us an email to let us know you will be participating. Also, please forward this message on to anyone else in New England that you think would be interested. Sincerely, Richard Primack; [email protected] Libby Ellwood; [email protected] Boston University
