ESTABLISHING A CITIZEN SCIENCE PLANT MONITORING PROGRAM AND COMPILATION OF HISTORICAL PLANT PHENOLOGY DATA IN THE CHESAPEAKE AND OHIO CANAL NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK TO INVESTIGATE LOCAL EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Abstract

Historical plant phenophase data were compiled and compared against current observations to determine if localized climate change evidence can be observed in the Potomac Gorge. Citizen scientists were trained to collect phenophase observations from six species: Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica), Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia), Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica), Red Maple (Acer rubrurn), Common Pawpaw (Asirnina triloba) and Northern Spicebush (Lindera benzoin). Historical data were collected from a variety of sources and observations were compiled and analyzed. Statistical tests compared current and historic flowering dates to see if there was any significance in blooming times. Data representing Pawpaw and Violet flowering dates were the only species to reflect a normal distribution to perform a t-test while of the two only Pawpaw showed significance in earlier blooming dates. Wilcoxon rank-sum test was also performed and did show more significance. Only Violets had a significant Spearman correlation.