PCLIM is an international network of scientists interested in the responses of the pine processionary moth Thaumetopoea pityocampa to climate change, a winter-active insect whose northward expansion is acknowledged as a bioindicator of winter warming (see the book the group published on the topic). PCLIMdb is a database of their observations on the phenology of the species throughout its range. This database is currently restricted to PCLIM members but will be made publicly available with a DOI when the corresponding data paper is published.

The database consists in an annual monitoring of caterpillar colonies to score the most advanced larval instars occuring in mid-winter, when temperatures are the lowest and larval moulting is the most unlikely (thereby making the survey less sensitive to small variations in sampling dates). These annual snapshots are being completed since 2015 and allow benchmarking phenological differences among regions and generations over a geographic extent unique for an insect.

How to use

The Phenology map and View & export filtered data tabs allow dynamically exploring observations, applying multiple filters, and exporting corresponding data. These are the main tools to get around the data and compare PPM phenology in space and time.

The SQLite explorer tab, namely the pclim link at the bottom, allows interacting directly with the SQLite database and run custom queries to compute summary statistics. While some knowledge of the SQLite syntax can help, editing an example query such as this one (made to calculate larval instar percentages per year and region) is relatively straightforward, and more advanced calculations are possible. The interface also provides tools to view data points (raw or resulting from custom queries) in tables and dynamic maps, filter according to facets or keywords, plot charts, and export subsets in a variety of text formats.