Monitoring phenology as part of university education

Systematic and regular monitoring phenology over a larger area is often based on cooperation with volunteers or workers who monitor the onset of phenophases and are thus part of phenological societies or national phenological networks. As part of our work and teaching at Mendel University in Brno (Bioclimatology courses) we have been cooperating with students since 2015 till now and one of the parts of their required semester work is the observation of the phenological development of selected species. At the beginning of the semester, students are thoroughly familiarized with the observation methodology and choose the plant species they will observe at regular visits during the semester (field crops, trees, shrubs or vineyards). Each student observes at least two trees or shrubs and one field crop and needs to visit the localities every three days (or more frequently if possible) and record the phenological development with cameras (using personal smartphones). During the semester or at the end of the semester, students upload pictures and terms of phenophases through the website www.fenofaze.cz. On this website, students' results and observations are displayed in real-time and are open to the general public. Student observations are strictly controlled and unusable data are taken out. We cooperate with c. 200 students each semester (i. e. 600 observations) and the first outputs showed that 50% of all observations are usable. Terms of phenophases are observed at the cadastre level and are aggregated to the district level to evaluate the long-term changes. In most cases, students approach vegetation phenological monitoring responsibly and with enthusiasm, and we consider it a reliable way of recording phenological changes and dates.

Acknowledgment: This research was funded by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic the project SustES—Adaptation strategies for the sustainability of ecosystem services and food security in adverse natural conditions (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000797).