Background/Question/Methods

The USA-NPN has successfully engaged a wide range of resource management, education and academic audiences over the first ten years of our development. In recent years, however, we have realized that unless we work actively to represent and include all demographic groups in the United States, we will continue to deliver benefits primarily to audiences that are more white, more educated and more wealthy than the US as a whole. We have made a formal commitment to diversity, inclusiveness, and equity in our actions, partnership development, as well as on our team. As a staff, we identified core values of inclusion, dedication, and innovation. Further, we explicitly incorporated these commitments throughout our goals in an update to our 5-year Strategic Plan.

Results/Conclusions

Our primary emphasis with this new commitment internally is to focus on staff growth and development, assess organizational practices, including office and hiring norms. Externally we are building relationships, meeting new audiences in their spaces, and attending meetings to listen and learn. We are also collaborating with like-minded organizations to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in the fields in which we operate, including citizen science, ecology, and natural resources. We have been working for several years to learn how to work appropriately with indigenous communities, including hewing to a framework respect, relationship, reciprocity and data sovereignty. At this meeting, and in other fora we hope to support indigenous voices in sharing powerful approaches understanding phenology and adapting to climate change. We have found that the simple question “Who Benefits?” can be transformative. We know we have a long way to go, and hope to undertake this journey collaboratively with the ecological community.

Presentation: Knowledge coproduction and decision science to reduce forest pest risk

Alyssa H. Rosemartin¹, Audrey Barker-Plotkin², Carrie Jean Brown-Lima³, Theresa M. Crimmins¹, Chris Donnelly⁴, Robert T. Fahey⁵, Joseph Elkington⁶, Karen Jenni⁷, Nicole Keleher⁸, James G. Mickley⁹, Toni Lyn Morelli¹⁰, Michael Parisio¹¹, Valerie Pasquarella¹², Nancy Putnam¹³, Brendan Quirion¹⁴, Joshua Rapp¹⁵, Nathan W. Siegert¹⁶, R. Talbot Trotter III¹⁷, Aaron S. Weed¹⁸ and Steve Wood¹³, (1)National Coordinating Office, USA National Phenology Network, Tucson, AZ, (2)Harvard Forest, (3)New York Invasive Species Research Institute, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, (4)Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, State of Connecticut, (5)Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, (6)University of Massachusetts, (7)US Geological Survey, (8)Forest Health Program, State of Massachusetts, (9)Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, (10)U.S. Geological Survey, Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, Amherst, MA, (11)Maine Forest Service, (12)Biological Sciences, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, (13)Conservation and Recreation, State of Massachusetts, (14)Cornell University, (15)Massachusetts Audubon, (16)State & Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection, USDA Forest Service, Durham, NH, (17)Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Hamden, CT, (18)Northeast Temperate Inventory and Monitoring Network, National Park Service, Woodstock, VT

Background/Question/Methods

Invasive species management, whether to preserve natural landscapes for future generations or to conserve the productivity of ecosystem services, faces numerous challenges including limited actionable options, uncertain outcomes, complex pathways and interactions, and a changing climate. Land managers dealing with forest pest risk have multiple, sometimes competing objectives such as reducing economic losses, ensuring human health and cultural values, maintaining wildlife habitat, and maximizing water quality as well as carbon storage and sequestration. There is a critical need to make risks to multiple societal assets explicit in decision making, and to weigh the consequences of pest outbreak prevention and mitigation actions in the context of societal and environmental objectives.

To address this need, we are applying and testing a knowledge coproduction approach. We created a working group of managers and researchers, as well as people experienced in interdisciplinary work at the interface of science and practice, representing state agencies, forestry and entomology extension, urban forestry and academia, as well as the US Geological Survey, the US Forest Service and the National Park Service. Through a facilitated two day workshop and series of video conference calls, we built a shared understanding of the management context and desired outcomes of our effort.

Results/Conclusions

We are using a set of indicators of successful coproduction of climate science to evaluate the effort. A survey following the two day workshop found very positive process outcomes, and enthusiasm for the perceived outcomes, tempered with a lack of clarity about the exact form those outcomes would take. In response, we have clarified project outputs and outcomes informed by group discussion and online voting. We agreed to develop multi-pest management guidance that contextualizes risks to societal assets and trade offs among mitigation choices in a Structured Decision Making framework. The completeness of the considerations in the Structured Decision Making framework prevents collaborators from limiting their view (e.g., only thinking about hazard or the provision of forecast information). In this presentation, we will share lessons learned about coproduction for forest pest risk, as well as the pest management guidance we are developing, which provides a structure for approaching forest pest risk, with illustrative examples of key pest-host pairs.

Q&A: Thursday, August 6, 3:30 PM - 4:40 PM EDT (link)

Presentation: Watching the grass grow: Volunteer-contributed observations of phenology advance science and decision-making

Katharine L. Gerst, Theresa M. Crimmins, Erin E. Posthumus and Alyssa H. Rosemartin, National Coordinating Office, USA National Phenology Network, Tucson, AZ

Background/Question/Methods

Phenological records collected by volunteers have allowed for the development of tools and resources that benefit conservation and natural resource management. Observing the seasonal activity of plants and animals has emerged as a key way for volunteers to contribute to scientific understanding of species’ responses to climate change and environmental variability. The field of phenology has made substantial advancements to identify the drivers and patterns of shifts in seasonal transitions over the past decade, much of this made possible by the contributions of citizen scientists. The USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN; www.usanpn.org) was established to serve science and society by promoting a broad understanding of plant and animal phenology and the relationships among phenological patterns, climate, and environmental change. Data collected by citizen and professional scientists through Nature’s Notebook -- a national-scale, multi-taxa phenology observation program -- serve USA-NPN strategic goals of advancing science and informing decisions. Since 2009 over 17,000 Nature’s Notebook participants have contributed over 20 million observation records of plants and animals across the United States to the National Phenology Database. These phenology data and resultant products are being used in a rapidly growing number of applications for science, conservation and resource management, including over 80 peer-reviewed publications to date.

Results/Conclusions

USA-NPN invites researchers, educators, and partners to participate in Nature’s Notebook, to explore these data and tools, and to collaborate with the network to address a wide range of science questions and management needs. Here we share how data collected by Nature’s Notebook observers has led to scientific advances and the development of tools meet the needs of stakeholders. We will describe two case studies that demonstrate the impact of this program across audiences and applications. First, we explain how Nature’s Notebook data is being used to understand the drivers and patterns of invasive species phenology, and how these data are being used to validate and improve predictive models to optimize control and treatment. Second, we show how data on leafing of deciduous trees across the country is allows for the evaluation of existing models of the onset of spring, and for the generation of new predictive models that can inform growing season dynamics. These examples reflect campaigns where scientists worked alongside USA-NPN staff on outreach and communication to motivate observations on high priority taxa. Observers in turn receive detailed information on what their data show and how it is being used via newsletters and webinars.