Collaborative Research: Digitization PEN: Expanding and enhancing the California Phenology TCN

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Flowering time is an important biological phenomenon, affecting human societies through its effects on agricultural crops, pollinators, pests, and biodiversity. Given the sensitivity of flowering times to climatic conditions, a thorough understanding of how plants respond to changing environments is necessary for predicting the consequences for pollinators, herbivores, parasites, and plant populations. A record of historical flowering times is found within the nation's herbaria – collections of dried and pressed plants. In 2018, the California Phenology Thematic Collections Network (CAP-TCN) was established to advance our understanding of flowering time changes over time. The network brought together 22 California universities, research stations, natural history collections, and botanical gardens, with the goal of imaging and recording the flowering status of approximately one million herbarium specimens collected over the past 150 years. These data are freely available through the newly established Consortium of California Herbaria (CCH2) portal. This project will add a partnership of seven new collections and six new institutions to the CAP-TCN, contributing an additional 150,000 herbarium specimens. The project participants will be fully integrated into CAP-TCN training and outreach activities including Notes from Nature online expeditions, which educate and involve members of the public in learning about herbarium specimens and flowering phenology. By expanding the geographic scope to encompass Oregon and the northern Baja California peninsula, the CAP-TCN will now cover the entire California Floristic Province, a biodiversity hotspot of global significance. This will increase the number of species with imaged specimens across their entire range from 1,217 to 1,850, a 55% increase. The addition of 80,000 Oregon and Baja California specimens to CCH2 will facilitate efficient specimen-based analyses of the entire California Floristic Province and for the first time allow a more objective and reproducible specimen-based delineation of its geographic boundaries. Three institutions in California and Nevada will fill key geographic gaps for northwestern California, the northern San Joaquin Valley, and the Mojave Desert. Two additional institutions will significantly increase CAP-TCN representation of 1) the ecologically important and taxonomically complex genus Arctostaphylos (manzanita); and 2) introduced and invasive species of importance to California agriculture, rangelands, and native ecosystems. An estimated 25 additional undergraduates will participate in digitizing activities. Ongoing public outreach efforts about the floras of Oregon and Baja California at Oregon State University and the San Diego Natural History Museum will also benefit from the newly imaged specimens. Data will be shared through online resources, including iDigBio.org.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.