Book Report - Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction

Mary Ellen Hannibal’s book is a testimonial to the power of individuals to help expand our knowledge of the natural world.   A notebook and an accurate weather report can turn into a 45-year study in how plants adapt to global warming, and that can help determine ways to help hummingbirds survive.  Figuring out how lilac trees know when to bud in spring and how that decision is made, might help forests survive.  It’s the little things that add up and individuals can make huge contributions.  Buy the book.

Science is built from observations, and for a subject as vast as global climate, there is no way for any one researcher — or team — to gather all the information alone. More and more, researchers are inviting all of us, as citizen scientists, to help collect the data that will truly save the world.

“I want to know what the lilacs know!” Toby Ault, a Cornell University climatologist told me. Lilac trees have been around for a very long time. One hundred and twenty thousand years ago, they persisted through a major shift in the climate spectrum.

Another scientist making important contributions in the field is David Inouye…  For more than 45 summers Inouye has conducted a field study in flowering phenology at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) in Crested Butte, Colorado. Although initially focused on bumblebees and hummingbirds, Inouye soon got interested “in the resources,” or the flowers on which the insects and birds depend. When his study began, Inouye had no idea that with time his work would become among the most important in documenting long term ecological change due to shifting weather patterns.