The main objective of PEP725 is to promote and facilitate phenological research by delivering a pan European phenological database with an open, unrestricted data access for science, research and education.
PEP725 was made possible by the continued support of EUMETNET and GeoSphere Austria.
Plant phenology is the study of the timing of natural plant processes, such as leaf sprouting, flowering and leaf shedding in autumn. These seasonal changes are influenced by environmental conditions, particularly temperature and daylight hours.
In the context of climate change, plant phenology is particularly significant because these events are changing. For instance, many plants are flowering earlier in spring due to rising temperatures; some extend their lifespan into autumn. Tracking these changes helps scientists to understand how ecosystems are responding to climate change. This can affect agriculture, biodiversity and the timing of food availability for animals and humans.
Many European countries have observation networks that monitor developments in plant life. Our project aims to collect national data from these networks and make it available to all interested parties in a standardised format — particularly the scientific community, but also anyone interested in how nature responds across Europe.
Barbara and Matthias Templ developed the R package pep725, to support the spatio-temporal analysis and diagnostic characterization of phenological data from the Pan European Phenology database (PEP725). The pep725 package provides tools for: The package includes several vignettes demonstrating typical workflows, including data access, quality diagnostics, spatial analyses, and visualization…
Read article
Our latest publication: Templ, B., Scheifinger, H., Ostovary, I., Ungersböck, M. and Ressl, H. (2026), PEP725: 15 years of driving European and global phenology science. New Phytol. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.70869 Phenology – the timing of seasonal biological events – is a sensitive indicator of climate change and ecosystem dynamics. Long-term, broad-scale phenological data…
Read article
Plant and animal phenology under the pressure of climate change Phenological changes induced by ongoing climate change are affecting species, ecosystems, and even the global climate by altering species performance, species interactions (potential mismatches and new opportunities in the food web), and water and carbon cycles. Observations of plant and…
Read article