A program of academic exchange has started within the Phenology Commission. As the first activity, Dr. Chen invited Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Chmielewski to visit Peking University, Beijing, China in May 2007. During their stay in Beijing, Dr. Schwartz presented three talks on the Spring Indices (SI) models and their applications, and field investigation of forest phenology in the northern Wisconsin, whereas Dr. Chmielewski gave two talks on fruit phenology and climate impacts in Germany, for the graduate students of the phenology group in the department of geography at Peking University. Dr. Chen and Dr. Schwartz also met the incoming Executive Director of the USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN), Dr. Weltzin (who was attending another scientific meeting during the time of Dr. Schwartz’s visit) in Beijing. Dr. Weltzin discussed strategies and problems in establishing the USA-NPN.
This is a “wall-to-wall” network whose time has come! A first workshop was held in August 2005, an IT meeting in March 2006, and a second workshop in October 2006. The following four documents provide background on the plans and accomplishments resulting from those meetings:
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Geography/npn/meetings/2005/betancourt_etal_2005.pdf
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Geography/npn/meetings/2006/towards_a_usa-npn.pdf
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Geography/npn/meetings/2006_2/npn_progress_update.pdf
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Geography/npn/meetings/2006_2/betancourt_etal_2007.pdf
Additional details on the progress made can be found on the Plant Phenology Programs web page (www.npn.uwm.edu), on the new web page for the National Office (www.usanpn.org), and at the Citizen Science Field Campaign page (www.budburst.org).
A recent and exciting development is the hiring of Jake Weltzin (University of Tennessee and currently at NSF) as Executive Director and Mark Losleben (formerly at University of Colorado) as Assistant Director. Mark Losleben has been on board since January 2007 and Jake Weltzin joins the USA-NPN team on August 19, 2007. They have a nice “footprint” for the National Coordinating Office at the University of Arizona’s Office of Arid Lands Studies, and are presently remodeling the space. The positions and the National Office are the result of a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Arizona.
In March 2007, Mark Schwartz received a $500K grant from NSF for a Research Coordination Network (RCN) that will cover USA-NPN meeting expenses for the next 5 years. The first annual meeting funded by that grant will take place August 27-30, 2007 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The key goal of this meeting will be to initiate the USA-NPN RCN. The first day of the meeting will include a science program with presentations from five invited scientists involved in innovative phenological research. At the meeting discussion will also begin on the development of an on-going process to facilitate coordination and enhancement of phenological research.
Breakout groups will be organized around specific products rather than topical areas. These products will likely include: