Enhancing data discovery across research networks through development of a plant phenology ontology

Phenology data are available in forms ranging from dates of discrete events reported by human observers to spectral reflectance values recorded by satellites. Are “colored leaves”, “senescing leaves” and “decreasing NDVI” the same thing? In the age of “big data”, how can a computer find and recognize related data? An international working group is addressing this issue by developing a formal ontology that describes plant phenology terms, processes, and relationships. This ontology will be used to semantically annotate datasets. The intended outcome is to simplify data discovery and deliver model-ready data to data consumers thus enabling global scale analyses.