5 students will be helping with an ongoing oak phenology project led by Mario Pesendorfer. Below is a brief project description written by Dr. Pesendorfer: "In our project, we study flowering phenology in populations of oak trees to determine how annual variation in weather conditions drive seed production. As wind-pollinated species, flowering success in individual oaks depends on the timing of pollen release in comparison to the timing of the rest of the population. Oaks, like many other tree species, are masting species, meaning that they produce highly variable seed crops every year and occasionally have synchronized bumper crops. This variation in population-wide crop sizes has important consequences for the whole ecosystem; from seed predation and dispersal, to population sizes of seed-eating species, such as mice, pigs, deer, birds etc, and even on ticks and their effect on Lyme disease in humans. We track the flowering phenology of individual trees, as well as their seed production, to make inferences about the effect of weather, changes in climate, and other processes on masting"

Approved