Flowering Times and Climate Change in Thoreau's Concord

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Global climate change is already altering biological communities: plants are flowering and leafing out earlier in the spring, birds are migrating and breeding earlier, and species are shifting their ranges. Predicting how biological communities will respond to future climate change and developing methods to lessen the harmful impacts of these changes will require knowledge about the responses of individual species. The Principal Investigator proposes to use historical and current observations to examine the effects of climate change on more than 700 plant species in Concord, Massachusetts. The investigator will compare his current (2004 to 2006) observations of the flowering times of plants in Concord with past observations of flowering times made by three local naturalists from 1851 to 1993. One of these naturalists is Henry David Thoreau, the well-known philosopher and author. From these comparisons, the investigator will determine which species are most and least responsive to climate change and which climatic variables are most closely linked to variation in flowering time. The investigator will also document the plant species currently present in Concord and their abundances, and compare this information to the five previous records documenting the Concord plant community to determine how the flora has changed over time. This interdisciplinary study, involving both current observations and historical records, will produce many unique publications from the shared viewpoint of science and history. The project, bolstered by including Thoreau's observations, is expected to generate extensive public interest, which will be supported through publications in the popular press, public talks, and the incorporation of volunteers and undergraduates in gathering and analyzing the data.