In response to climate change, which threatens to disrupt plant phenological stages such as budding and flowering, researchers are leveraging a novel tool—Flora Incognita—to harness data from citizen scientists worldwide. This mobile app, developed by Jana Wäldchen and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and TU Ilmenau, allows users to identify wild plants instantly through photographs, which are then timestamped and geo-tagged.
“Millions of time-stamped plant observations from diverse regions have already been amassed,” explains Wäldchen. This wealth of data, collected between 2018 and 2021 across Germany, forms the basis of a groundbreaking algorithm. Analyzing nearly 10 million observations encompassing 3,000 plant species, researchers discovered that individual plants exhibit unique cycles in flowering and growth phases. Moreover, collective behaviors among plants reveal distinct ecological patterns influenced by regional factors such as proximity to rivers or mountains.
The algorithm developed by the researchers compensates for irregularities in data collection patterns among Flora Incognita users, who tend to contribute more observations on weekends and in densely populated areas. “Our method effectively isolates these biases from ecological patterns,” notes Karin Mora, a research fellow at Leipzig University and iDiv.
While satellite data provides a broader view of phenological shifts across ecosystems, it lacks the ground-level insights crucial for understanding local plant behaviors. Mora emphasizes that despite fluctuations in data collection, the algorithm facilitates robust analysis even with reduced winter observations.
Climate change has accelerated seasonal shifts, evidenced by earlier springs, posing risks to plant-pollinator relationships and potentially food security. The newfound capability of the algorithm to discern ecological impacts of these changes marks a significant advancement in ecological research.
The integration of Flora Incognita’s data-driven insights into ecological modeling promises to deepen our understanding of climate change’s impact on plant communities, thereby informing strategies for conservation and adaptation in a rapidly changing world.
