Flower Study Blooms

In less then a week, amateur scientists will be able to help researchers study climate change by tracking the life cycle of flowers.

A nationwide initiative called Project BudBurst, which launches Feb. 15, allows students, gardeners and other citizen-scientists to enter their observations into an online database that will give researchers a detailed picture of climate variations.

Last spring, several thousand people in 26 states took part in the pilot program, contributing leafing and flowering times of hundreds of plant species. The project looks to build on that initial success by operating year round so that plant species can be monitored throughout their life cycles.

A global temperature rise of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit would put a third of all known plant and animal species at risk of extinction, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"Climate change may be affecting our backyards and communities in ways that we don’t even notice,” says project coordinator Sandra Henderson of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. “Project BudBurst is designed to help both adults and children understand the changing relationship among climate, seasons, and plants, while giving the participants the tools to communicate their observations to others."

--LiveScience Staff

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Credit: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Carlye Calvin