Capturing California’s flowers — using digital images to investigate phenological change in a biodiversity hot spot

Summary

Flowering time is an important biological phenomenon, affecting human societies through its effects on agricultural crops, pollinators, pests, and biodiversity. Flowering time is sensitive to climatic conditions and can help us to understand the consequences of climatic change. This project is collectively producing nearly one million digital images of the plant specimens housed in herbaria throughout California, allowing researchers to assess trends in flowering time over the nearly 200 years that these specimen records cover. At Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, we are imaging 70,000 specimens and databasing another 10,000.