Supplementary material to “Origins of the Word ‘Phenology’”


Published 25 August 2009


Gaston R. Demarée, Royal Meteorological Institute, Brussels, Belgium

This Rutishauser, Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF-CEAB-CSIC), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Citation:

Demarée, G. R., and T. Rutishauser (2009), Origins of the word “phenology,” Eos Trans. AGU, 90(34), 291. [Full Article (pdf)]

Gaston R. Demarée,
Royal Meteorological Institute, Ringlaan 3, B–1180 Brussels, Belgium gaston.demaree@oma.be

This Rutishauser
Global Ecology Unit, Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF-CEAB-CSIC), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain. this@creaf.uab.cat

Online Supplement
Figures and commented references

Definition Phenology

Figure S1: First elaborated definition of 'phénologie' (phenology) by the Belgian botanist Charles Morren (1807–1858) following a public lecture at the Academy of Brussels on December 16 1849 (Morren 1849b).

Lines 4–6: "This is a particular science having the goal to understand the manifestations of life governed by time, it is called phenology."

Term Phenology

Figure S2: First use of the term phenology in the title of a scientific paper by Belgian botanist Charles Morren in 1853.

Lines 1–6: "A large number of persons observed extraordinary appearances of the vegetation during the first half of winter 1852 to 1853 noteworthy to be collected in the annuals of meteorology, or even better in the annuals of phenology, which is the science of theses sort of things."

Comments

Presumably Belgian botanist Charles Morren made the first mentioning of the term 'phenology' in a modern scientific context in 1849 (Morren 1849a). A more elaborated text was published in by Morren (1849b, Figure S1) in the same year. See also Demarée (2009).

The history of phenology from all continents is documented various chapters in "Phenology. An Integrative Environmental Science" (Schwartz, 2003). In addition, we refer to Pfister (1984), Nekovar et al. (2008) and Rutishauser (2009) for Europe and Yoshino (2004) for ancient China.

For general readings and references we suggest IPCC (2007). Remote sensing and modeling phenology is described in White et al. (2009) as well as Chuine (2000), Stöckli et al. (2008), and Randerson et al. (2009). Most recently, the importance of phenological observations in climate impact and feedback studies is summarized in Steltzer and Post (2009) and Peñuelas et al. (2009).

Monographs on phenology were published by Schnelle (1955) Lieth (1974) and most recently by Schwartz (2003).

References:

Chuine, I. (2000) A unified model for budburst of trees. J theor. Biol. 207, 337–347.

Demarée, G.R. (2009) The phenological observations and networking of Adolphe Quetelet at the Royal Observatory of Brussels, Italian Journal of Agrometeorology, No. 1, 22–24.

Fritsch, K. (1858) Instruction für phänologische Beobachtungen. Jährbücher der k.k. Central-Anstalt für Meteorologie und Erdmagnetismus, V. Band, Jg. 1853, Kaiserlich Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, pp. 51–62.

IPCC, 2007. M. L. Parry, O. F. Canziani, J. P. Palutikof, P. J. van der Linden and C. E. Hanson, Eds., Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1000 pp.

Lieth, H. (Ed.) (1974) Phenology and seasonality modelling. Springer-Verlag, New York.

Morren, C. (1849a) Des phénomènes périodiques de la végétation. Annales de la Société royale d'Agriculture et de Botanique de Gand. Journal d'Horticulture et des Sciences accessoires, Tome V, Bruxelles & Liége.

Morren, C. (1849b) Le Globe, le Temps et la Vie. Bulletins de l'Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Tome XVI, IIme Partie, pp. 660–684.

Morren, C. (1853) Souvenirs phénologiques de l'hiver 1852–1853. Bulletin de l'Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique. Tome XX, 1e partie, pp. 160–186.

Nekovar, J. et al. (2008) The history and current status of plant phenology in Europe. COST Action 725, COST Office, 2008, 182 p.

Peñuelas, J., T. Rutishauser, I. Filella (2009) Phenology Feedbacks on Climate Change. Science 324, 887–888.

Pfister, C. (1984) Klimageschichte der Schweiz 1525–1860, Paul Haupt, 1984

Randerson, A. et al. Systematic assessment of terrestrial biogeochemistry in coupled climate–carbon models Global Change Biology, in press,

Rutishauser, T. (2009) Historical Phenology in Central Europe. Seasonality and Climate During the Past 500 Years, Geographica Bernensia, Vol. G 82, pp. 152.

Schnelle, F. (1955). Pflanzen-Phänologie. Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Geest und Portig.

Schwartz, M. D. (Ed.) (2003) Phenology. An Integrative Environmental Science, Kluwer.

Steltzer, H. and Eric Post (2009) Seasons and Life Cycles. Science 324, 886–887.

Stöckli, R. et al. (2008) Remote sensing data assimilation for a prognostic phenology model. Journal of Geophysical Research (Biogeosciences) 113 , G04021.

White, M. A. et al. Intercomparison, interpretation, and assessment of spring phenology in North America estimated from remote sensing for 1982–2006, Global Change Biology, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.01910.x, in press.

Yoshino, M. (2004) Development of phenological recognition and phenology in ancient China. Japanese Journal of Biometeorology 41, 141–154.