Changes in plant phenology can be linked to different climate factors depending on the species, such precipitation or growing degree days.
[5] Aggregated data about the timing of plant life cycle stages at different places and times can provide information about spatiotemporal patterns within and among species, and potentially offer insight into how plants may change or shift their life cycles in response to climate change.
When the upper and lower counts both equal zero, an absence is inferred for that trait by the ontology using the HermiT reasoner.
For example, if pollen-releasing flower heads are observed to be present (PPO:0002340) with an upper count of five and lower count of five (meaning there are exactly five pollen-releasing flower heads on the observed plant), the reasoned ontology can also infer that floral structures are present (PPO:0002026) on the plant.
[1] Because most observation networks were only established in the early 2000s,[4][15][16] they contain a wealth of plant phenological data for the 21st century, but do not offer insight into historical baselines.