Plant ecologists in the Anthropocene are tasked with documenting, interpreting, and predicting how plants respond to environmental change. Phenology, the timing of seasonal biological events including leaf‐out, flowering, fruiting, and leaf senescence, is among the most visible and oft‐recorded facets of plant ecology. Climate‐driven shifts in plant phenology can alter reproductive success, interspecific competition, and trophic interactions. Low‐cost phenology research, including observational records and experimental manipulations, is fundamental to our understanding of both the mechanisms and effects of phenological change in plant populations, species, and communities. Traditions of local‐scale botanical phenology observations and data leveraged from written records and natural history collections provide the historical context for recent observations of changing phenologies. New technology facilitates expanding the spatial, taxonomic, and human interest in this research by combining contemporary field observations by researchers and open access community science (e.g., USA National Phenology Network) and available climate data. Established experimental techniques, such as twig cutting and common garden experiments, are low‐cost methods for studying the mechanisms and drivers of plant phenology, enabling researchers to observe phenological responses under novel environmental conditions. We discuss the strengths, limitations, potential hidden costs (i.e., volunteer and student labor), and promise of each of these methods for addressing emerging questions in plant phenology research. Applied thoughtfully, economically, and creatively, many low‐cost approaches offer novel opportunities to fill gaps in our geographic, taxonomic, and mechanistic understanding of plant phenology worldwide.

中文翻译：

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低成本的观察和实验在植物物候研究中具有很高的价值。

人类世的植物生态学家的任务是记录、解释和预测植物如何应对环境变化。物候学是季节性生物事件的时间，包括落叶、开花、结果和叶片衰老，是植物生态学中最明显和经常记录的方面之一。气候驱动的植物物候变化可以改变繁殖成功率、种间竞争和营养相互作用。低成本的物候研究，包括观测记录和实验操作，对于我们了解植物种群、物种和群落物候变化的机制和影响至关重要。地方尺度植物物候观察的传统以及来自书面记录和自然历史收藏的数据为最近观察不断变化的物候提供了历史背景。新技术通过结合研究人员的当代实地观察和开放获取的社区科学（例如，美国国家物候网络）和可用的气候数据，促进扩大对这项研究的空间、分类和人类兴趣。成熟的实验技术，如树枝切割和普通花园实验，是研究植物物候机制和驱动因素的低成本方法，使研究人员能够在新的环境条件下观察物候反应。我们讨论了优势、局限性、潜在的隐性成本（即志愿者和学生劳动力），并承诺这些方法中的每一种都可以解决植物物候研究中出现的问题。经过深思熟虑、经济和创造性地应用，许多低成本方法提供了新的机会来填补我们对全球植物物候学的地理、分类和机制理解方面的空白。