Today, a brand-new collection of papers has been released by Biotropica as a Special Section – “Rethinking tropical phenology: insights from long‐term monitoring and novel analytical methods” – edited by Katharine Abernethy, Irene Mendoza and Bryan Finegan.
Of the nine research papers making up the release, six derive from Africa, and represent a major step forward in publishing on African phenology.
Over the next few weeks we plan to publish articles on this blog exploring these papers in more detail, but in summary, the papers include:
- The first pan-African analysis of reproductive phenology including data from 12 tropical forest sites across the continent.
- The first analysis of flowering, fruiting and leafing cycles at Lopé NP – one the longest, continuous, phenology research sites in the tropics – and recommendations for effective tropical phenology monitoring.
- A new investigation of the impacts of both local weather and long-term climate cycles on fruiting phenology at the long-term research site Kibale NP, Uganda.
- A first analysis of the impacts of rainfall on fruiting phenology at Ranomafana NP, Madagascar
- An assessment of the impacts of tree size, growth and guild, access to light and liana load on reproductive phenology at Budongo Forest Reserve, Uganda.
- The most complete report on reproductive diameters for 31 major timber species in central Africa
In the mean time, we recommend you make the most of this exciting new resource while the papers are open-access for the first few weeks.
