Annual Report 2003

ISB Commission 1 (Phenology)

Submitted by Mark D. Schwartz, Chair

1. Members of the Commission planned and sponsored an international conference held in Wageningen, The Netherlands, 31 March – 2 April. The Conference was formally titled: “Challenging Times”, with the sub-title: “Towards an operational system for monitoring, modeling, and forecasting of phenological changes and their socio-economic impacts.” Approximately 100 participants from at least 20 countries listened to 10 keynote presentations and 34 papers, viewed many posters, and took part in several organized workshop sessions. The conference served as the second major meeting of the European Phenology Network (EPN), so the focus was on Europe. However, papers also addressed interconnections, applications, and implications for other continents, as well as global change. Detailed information about the talks, including the abstracts, can be viewed at the conference web page: http://www.dow.wau.nl/msa/epn/challengingtimes/.

   I was given the honor of officially opening the conference, where I was able to welcome all the participants on behalf of ISB and publicly thank the ISB for its support, comment on the discipline-diversity of the participants and the challenge-potential of phenological research, closing with thankfulness for the positive contribution of conferences like this one to international cooperation and future benefits for science and society.
   I also served as editor of a new book entitled “Phenology: An Integrative Environmental Science” for Kluwer Academic Publishers which was published in October. The book is 592 pages long, and has 33 chapters, including contributions from 14 commission members. Additional detail can be viewed at: .

2. In other activities, Commission members continue to promote phenological observations around the world through the Global Phenological Monitoring protocol, and through cooperation with the GLOBE program. A new initiative within GLOBE, involving monitoring of selected plants in a “phenological garden” was launched by commission members from Germany. In the USA, I am also moving forward with a national phenological network plan that should become operational in 2004 or 2005.