News & Publications

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Late Bloom Index is live!

Fri, Apr 17, 2026
Seasonal Story

We are excited to unveil another new index of spring – the Late Bloom Index! The Late Bloom Index indicates when plants that bloom at the tail end of the season are flowering, effectively representing the end of the spring season.

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Student Spotlight: Chuck Haight

Tue, Mar 10, 2026
Testimonials

Students in Dr. Ava Goodale’s Environmental Science Research Course at Deerfield Academy collect environmental data as volunteer scientists, analyze those data in a technical report, and create an interpretive writing piece that tells a story about their experience. The students featured in this series participated in Nature’s Notebook campaigns and were kind enough to share their writing with us.

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Student Spotlight: Henry Cron

Tue, Mar 10, 2026
Testimonials

Students in Dr. Ava Goodale’s Environmental Science Research Course at Deerfield Academy collect environmental data as volunteer scientists, analyze those data in a technical report, and create an interpretive writing piece that tells a story about their experience. The students featured in this series participated in Nature’s Notebook campaigns and were kind enough to share their writing with us.

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Student Spotlight: Eleanor duPont

Tue, Mar 10, 2026
Testimonials

Students in Dr. Ava Goodale’s Environmental Science Research Course at Deerfield Academy collect environmental data as volunteer scientists, analyze those data in a technical report, and create an interpretive writing piece that tells a story about their experience. The students featured in this series participated in Nature’s Notebook campaigns and were kind enough to share their writing with us.

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Introducing the Thermal Calendars tool

Mon, Mar 09, 2026
News

Temperature is an important factor governing when seasonal events happen in many plant and animal species. For many species, events like leaf-out, flowering, and egg hatch are triggered when a specific amount of heat has accumulated since the start of the year. We typically measure accumulated heat in growing degree days (GDDs). The Thermal Calendars tool indicates when particular GDD levels (or thresholds) of accumulated warmth are met each year in the northeastern U.S. Local resource managers can use the tool to determine when problematic insect pests are expected to enter particular life stages when they may cause the most damage or are most readily controlled.

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Nature’s Notebook observations reveal clear changes in New Jersey

Mon, Mar 09, 2026
Publication Summary

Global temperatures are increasing and the impacts are numerous and wide ranging. Temperatures have been rising at a particularly fast rate in the northeastern U.S., including many densely populated areas like New Jersey. To document environmental changes and better understand the impacts of climate change in this region since the mid-1960s, researchers gathered data on sea and air temperatures, lake ice, and snowfall. They complimented the weather data with observations of spring leaf-out and flowering in local lilac plants. The researchers found clear evidence of climate change, with notable increases in both daytime and nighttime temperatures and earlier spring plant activity. These changes will have numerous economic, social, and ecological impacts. Among other effects, earlier spring onset has the potential to alter plant-pollinator interactions and the length of the pollen and growing seasons.

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Phenology Week! March 16-20, 2026

Tue, Feb 03, 2026
News

March 16-20, 2026 is Phenology Week - a virtual celebration of the seasonal cycles of plants and animals. The purpose of Phenology Week is to celebrate YOU, our Nature's Notebook observers, Local Phenology Programs, and partners! We'll have webinars, awards, daily challenges, observer stories, and more.

We want to hear from you! What did you enjoy about Phenology Week this year, what could be improved, what do you want to see next year? 

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2026 Heat Accumulation vs Rodent Prognostication

Mon, Feb 02, 2026
Seasonal Story

On February 2, 2026, Punxsutawney Phil made his annual prediction of what the next six weeks of weather will bring. According to Phil, more winter is on the way! But what does the science say?

Our maps of heat accumulation provide a more scientific look at how much heat has accumulated so far this year, and what's next. Our maps show that heat accumulation is ahead of schedule in much of the west, on time in the Midwest and upper Northeast, and behind schedule in the East.

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Spruce budworm affects more than just spruce trees

Fri, Jan 09, 2026
Publication Summary

Insect pests, like emerald ash borers and spongy moths, pose a significant threat to forests in North America. Management of these pests depends on information about which trees are at greatest risk and which treatments are likely to be most effective. Outbreaks of spruce budworm can devastate fir and spruce forests in the northeastern U.S. and Canada, but the risk to other tree species has not been well documented. Researchers in Maine used Nature’s Notebook observations and tree ring data to show that spruce budworms also feed on eastern hemlock trees, which leaf out at the same time as fir and spruce trees. Understanding the risk to eastern hemlock trees is important because the trees play a unique role in eastern forests and are also harvested commercially.

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Nature’s Notebook data reveal earlier spring activity under warmer conditions

Wed, Nov 05, 2025
Publication Summary

Results from many small-scale studies have shown that warming temperatures are causing plants to leaf-out and flower earlier than they have in the past. However, it has been difficult to know whether these patterns hold true for a wide variety of plant species at a continental scale. To answer this question, researchers used thousands of observations of plants in the eastern U.S. that were submitted to Nature’s Notebook, mainly by volunteers. They found that leaf-out and flowering occurred earlier with warmer temperatures, but the effects varied among species and locations. Invasive species, shrub species, and species at southern latitudes were more sensitive to warming temperatures than other species. These patterns were similar to results from analyses of data collected by professionals and consistent with results from previous scientific studies, demonstrating the value of Nature’s Notebook observations.

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