Trails-as-transects: phenology monitoring across heterogenous microclimates in Acadia National Park, Maine was published last week in the journal Ecosphere.
 |
| Lowbush blueberry flowers on an Acadia transect |
Caitlin hiked Cadillac, Pemetic, and Sargent Mountains repeatedly each spring to collect local leaf out and flowering phenology data across the environmental gradients in Acadia National Park. While it might seem like her dissertation field work was a walk in the park, she and her field assistants gathered over 20,000 phenology observations and successfully estimated shifts in leaf out and flowering (in days/°C) for nine common plant species.
 |
| Emerging Canada mayflower leaves on an Acadia transect |
This work supports Acadia National Park’s efforts to identify species vulnerable to climate change and sets the stage for future citizen science phenology programming on the hiking trails.
 |
| Four years of fieldwork selfies — Caitlin's favorite photo from each year on her Acadia transects |
Read the paper here. Caitlin also published a long post about the hiking fieldwork, including calculations of how long it really took to hike each mountain transect, at the PLoS Ecology Community blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment