Christine Tansey

I am a NERC Case student working with the Woodland Trust on phenology.

My project involves working with Nature’s Calendar, the citizen science scheme that contributes data to the UK Phenology Network. An initial focus is the analysis of phenological variation over space and time for a range of UK plant species. Through this I can examine the evolutionary processes that underpin such variation.

A second main area of my research investigates how to make the most of citizen science data. To address questions that cannot currently be answered by Nature's Calendar records, I have developed Track A Tree - a citizen ecology scheme to record spring events across the UK's woodlands. We are recruiting volunteers to monitor the phenology of individual woodland trees and selected flowering plants beneath their canopies in spring 2014 and 2015. You can read more about my work on the Woodland Matters blog, and keep up to date with Track a Tree's activities on our Facebook page or on Twitter.