Fairbanks Wildflower Table Exhibit: Posters

  By Richard B. Primack 

 

“I would thus from time to time take advice of the birds.”  Henry David Thoreau in his Journal.

 

At the Fairbanks Museum exhibit, six posters present information about the Wildflower Table and our analysis of the Wildflower Table data.

 

Photo 1: Since 1903, volunteers have been collecting the first plants in flower in the St. Johnsbury area and exhibiting them at the Museum’s Wildflower Table.

 

Photo 2: Weather observations collected at the Museum have documented a rising temperature over the past 122 years. 

 

Photo 3: Using records from the Wildflower Table logbooks, we determined that plants are flowering earlier now than they did in the past. 

 

Photo 4: Plants are responding to a warming climate, flowering earlier in years with a warmer spring. 

 

Photo 5: Comparing records of first arrival times of migratory birds with those of flowering times demonstrates that plants are more responsive to climate change than are migratory birds. This might result in an ecological mismatch in coming decades.

 

Photo 6: The herbarium specimens held by the Museum can be used to identify plants, and represent another potential source of data to be used in this study. 

 

Here is a video about the opening symposium for the exhibit: LINK