Data acquisition
The data were collected by two research programs: the Chronicles of Nature (Letopisi Prirody) monitoring program, and a volunteer network of phenological observers (Fenologicheskii Klub). The Chronicles of Nature monitoring program22 is based on the network of strictly protected areas (zapovedniks) and national parks. The program gradually evolved during early 1900s23 and was formally established in 1940 with the aim of streamlining scientific work in protected areas with standardized methodology among the organizations. The program involves the permanent personnel of each participating organization. The results of the monitoring programs are published annually as Chronicle of Nature books. One printed copy of the books was kept in the office of the participating organization and another copy was sent to the Governmental Environmental Conservation Service (or a corresponding entity depending on the specific point in time).
In the Chronicles of Nature monitoring program, bird phenological events are extracted from route-based observations conducted regularly by ornithologists or professional rangers of the protected areas. Plant phenological events are reported either by botanists who visit permanent monitoring plots or transect, or by rangers who conduct regular walk-throughs within the strictly protected area or national park. The insect phenological data are extracted from standardized trapping data collected by entomologists on permanent plots or transects. The amphibian and reptile data are extracted from standardized trapping data collected by herpetologists. The fungal phenological data are collected by mycologists on permanent plots or transects. The weather event data are collected following a list of pre-defined events (e.g. first day of snowfall) by dedicated personnel or sourced from observations made on a local meteorological station. The types of data collected by each organization depends on the expertise of different taxonomic groups in the scientific personnel. For more details on how the data were collected, see22,24,25,26,27,28.
The network of phenological volunteer observers was established by the Russian Geographic Society in 1848 with questionnaires sent out to selected contacts among scientific community, including teachers and general public29. The participants of the volunteer observation network make observations throughout the year to collect data on a pre-defined limited set of phenological events related to plants, animals, and weather. The species included in the pre-defined lists were selected so that they could be identified reliably without specific taxonomical training.
Data digitalization and unification
The compilation of the data in a common database was initiated in the context of the project “Linking environmental change to biodiversity change: long-term and large-scale data on European boreal forest biodiversity” (EBFB), funded for 2011–2015 by the Academy of Finland, and continued with the help of other funding to OO since 2016. We organized a series of project meetings that were essential for data acquisition, digitalization and unification. These meetings were organized in Ekaterinburg (Russia) by the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Ural Branch of RAS (Russian Academy of Sciences) in 2011; in Petrozavodsk (Russia) by the Forest Research Institute, at the Karelian Research Center, RAS in 2013; in Miass (Russia) by the Ilmen Nature Reserve in 2014; in Krasnoyarsk (Russia) by the Stolby Nature Reserve in 2014; in Artybash (Russia) by the Altaisky Nature Reserve in 2015; in Listvyanka, Lake Baikal (Russia) by the Zapovednoe Pribajkalje Nature Reserve in 2016; in Roztochja (Ukraine) by the Ministry of Natural Resources of Ukraine in 2016; in Puschino (Russia) by the Prioksko-Terrasniy Nature Reserve in 2017, in Vyshinino (Russia) by the Kenozero National Park in 2018, and in St Petersburg (Russia) by the Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2019.
The compilation of the data into a common database was conducted by the database coordinators (EM and CL) in Helsinki (Finland). Those participants that already held the data in digital format submitted it in the original format, and those that had the data only in paper format digitized it using Excel-based templates developed in the project meetings. Submitted data were processed by the database coordinators according to the following steps:
- 1.
The data were formatted so that each observation (the phenological date of a particular event in a particular locality and year) formed one row in the data table (e.g. un-pivoting tables that involved several years as the columns). The phenological event names were split into event type (e.g. “first occurrence“) and species name.
- 2.
The event type names (provided originally typically in Russian) were translated into English and the species names (usually provided in Russian) were identified to scientific names, using dictionaries that were partly developed and verified in the project meetings. All scientific names were periodically verified by mapping them to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) backbone taxonomy30.
- 3.
We associated each data record with the following set of information fields: (1) project name, i.e. the source organization, (2) dataset name, (3) locality name, (4) unique taxon identifier, (5) scientific taxon name, and (6) event type.
- 4.
We imported the data records in the main database (maintained as an EarthCape database at https://ecn.ecdb.io). During the import, the taxonomic names, locality names, and dataset names were matched against already existing records.
- 5.
The database was published in Zenodo31.
Updates and limitations
There are at least 150 National Parks and Nature Reserves that collect Chronicles of Nature Book data (in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan). Out of these, the current database covers data from 62 organizations, with the highest coverage in European Russia (Fig. 2). The collection of new data continues in most parks. Thus, the database is not complete, and we aim to support the database with updates, depending on the interest of new partners to join, as well as resources and funding. The technical validation procedures described below will also be applied to any new information included in the database. The resulting new versions of the database will be released through the Zenodo repository to ensure the long-term availability of the database.
The Chronicles of Nature programme involves several kinds of systematically collected data beyond phenology data: e.g. trapping data on small mammals, count data on birds, and yield data on berries and mushrooms22. We aim to publish these data as separate data papers.
Source: Ecology - nature.com
