Theresa Crimmins is an Associate Professor in the School of
Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona, and
she is Director of the USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN). She
wrote the book Phenology, published in March 2025 by The MIT Press.
The book´s chapters explore four key questions—What Is Phenology?
How Is Phenology Changing? What Data and Information Do We Use
to Evaluate Changes in Phenology? and, Why Should We Care?—
and propel action in the chapters called, Putting Our Understanding
of Phenology to Work, and You Can Play a Role Too.
In the book's preface, Crimmins describes how even after the 20-plus
years she's worked in the field of phenology—the study of the timing of
recurring seasonal activity of plants and animals—her family members
still ask her, "Now, what is it you do again?" And so, an undeniable, Jedi-
like pull of destiny led Crimmins to write an accessible and lively book
to bring folks' fuzzy impressions about phenology into clearer focus.
Crimmins illuminates her themes with engaging narrative storytelling; she
follows fellow scientists as they combine historic and contemporary data to
show the extent to which a change in life cycle event timing has occurred.
A fantastic example hails from New York: how overstory deciduous trees
and understory herbaceous plants from temperate ecosystems, such as
The Forecast
is Good…
for Phenology
a New Book by Theresa Crimmins
By Michelle Sutton, Editor, City Trees
24 CityTREES
