A citizen science project in the fields of Longmeadow that has been in the works for years.

LONGMEADOW — Signs encouraging participation in citizen science are posted on wooden posts along the path at the Fannie Stebbins Memorial Wildlife Refuge.

Take a photo of the field with your smartphone from the smartphone holder on the post. Email the photo to the provided email address and voila! — Added a bit of data to the timeline tracking changes in the sector since 2020.

It’s just one of the few data collection sites in Western Massachusetts alone that tracks changes in the natural environment with the help of passersby.

There are about 1,500 such locations around the world, such as tracking erosion on Florida’s coastline and monitoring fall foliage in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, said Jake Rose, co-founder of Chronolog, a company that helps manage the data collected at the sites.

These photo stations have led to the precise identification of invasive species or the discovery that certain environments are prime habitat for endangered species, he said.

The Fannie Stebbins location is about 200 meters from a wildlife preserve trail, and because the location has been around for so long, Rose said the photo station was something of a prototype.

This week, the road leading to the photo station was flooded. Water 2 to 3 inches deep ran partially across the path. Young leaves were just beginning to appear on the trees and shrubs in the fields protected by electric fences. A pair of red-winged blackbirds were chasing each other across a field.

Karen Lombardo, the conservation organization’s executive director, said Fannie Stebbins Wildlife Refuge is one of the largest areas of intact floodplain forest along the Connecticut River.

About 10 years ago, The Nature Conservancy launched a rewilding project to restore floodplain forests to fields that had been mowed for bird habitat. Lombard said the group removed the dog run, planted about 20 species of trees and protected it from deer with electric fencing.

“You can see some of the trees are getting pretty big,” said Lombard, who was recently walking along Pondside Road. “It’s going to take a while for it to become a forest, but I’m hopeful that others will be added over time.”

Since September 2020, Chronolog Photo Station has been tracking the growth of the area, with approximately 56 people submitting approximately 85 photos to the timelapse.

This is one of three citizen science projects being conducted at the Silvio O. Conte National Wildlife Refuge, including Fannie Stebbins, said William Ardren, conservation manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The other two Chronolog photo stations, also in the Connecticut River Valley, are located in New Hampshire and Vermont.

Ardren, who has been the shelter manager for about a year, visited Fannie Stebbins on Wednesday to help dedicate a plaque next to the parking lot.

He said the photo station is an “opportunity to capture the changing times and seasons” at the facility, which is visited by about 25,000 people a year. Not only are forests a stopping point for migratory birds, Ardren said, but rare floodplain forests also act as flood sponges.

In prepared remarks, Ardren said the shelter “will also serve as an outdoor classroom for people of all ages to participate.”

Rose said his company’s Timeline project is part of the citizen science trend, in which ordinary people with smartphones, for example, collect data useful to scientists. Other citizen science projects include a platform to track migratory birds, he said.

“There’s a real need for scientists who can only do so much on a day-to-day basis, but who need more data,” Rose said. “And there is a desire from people who are visiting these natural areas to contribute something.”

Installing cameras to monitor the natural environment comes with maintenance costs, Rose said. So a bunch of crowdsourced smartphone photos become data-rich packets of information.

“Taking pictures is very valuable,” Rose said. “We can’t go back in time and take pictures. AI won’t help us here.”

Thanks in part to a grant, photo stations have begun to be installed on properties managed by the Franklin Land Trust, demonstrating the group’s rewilding efforts. The three Chronolog stations have been standing for about a year at Edge Hill Reserve, a former golf course in Ashfield that was acquired by the trust in 2023.

Follow the Trust’s efforts to restore golf course waters to wetlands in two locations. Another organization monitors efforts to restore shrubland and grassland habitat.

The trust also manages two other photography stations at Crowningshield Reserve, a former dairy farm in Heath, one to track erosion and other changes along part of West Branch Brook, and another to capture wider views of the valley.

Mary Lynn Sabourin, executive director of the Franklin Land Trust, said the photo station will also attract visitors to the property.

Visitors take photos and “they are actively engaged in observing changes in the land,” Sabourin said. They have become invested and are eager to learn about real estate plans, she said.

Alex Walstrom, the trust’s land manager, dug the posthole for the photo station last April. Although the system has only been in place for a year, the trust is able to gauge how popular a station is by looking at how often it is used.

Already in the photo you can see that the goldenrod is starting to grow. Some beavers have moved into the Edge Hill area along the road, and signs of that are hinted at in the time-lapse “if you know what you’re looking at,” Walstrom said.

He said the trust was hoping to install more photo stations across its grounds.