Acadia National Park's Science in 2023: 85 Projects and 39 Publications

2023 was another busy year for science in Acadia National Park. Researchers worked on 85 projects, many of them looking ahead: how the park's natural and cultural resources are changing, and how best to manage them so they stay healthy for future generations.

The researchers included Gero Fellows, Second Century Stewardship Fellows, Scientist-in-Parks interns, staff of the Park Service and the Schoodic Institute, student teams from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and faculty and students from College of the Atlantic, the University of Maine and other partners.

Some of the year's work

Southern pine beetle. Caroline Kanaskie, a Second Century Stewardship Fellow and PhD candidate at the University of New Hampshire, studied what puts pines at risk from the southern pine beetle. As the climate warms, the beetle is spreading north and may soon reach Acadia. In an outbreak it can kill pines in large numbers, pitch pines among them, which are plentiful in much of the park. Her work will guide decisions about this beetle and other insects and diseases that may arrive as the climate changes.

Small mammals. Dr. Brittany Slabach, also a Second Century Stewardship Fellow and a faculty member at Trinity University, began studying the park's small mammals — squirrels, mice, voles and the like — and how they respond to restoration work such as replanting the summits of Cadillac, Sargent and Penobscot mountains. Small mammals spread the seeds of many plants and are important prey for coyotes, birds of prey and others. The last major study of them in the park was 20 years ago, so this one will bring the picture up to date and help shape restoration so that it benefits them.

Soil for the summits. Dozens of volunteers carried 3,750 pounds of soil up Sargent and Penobscot mountains for the Save Our Summits project. It was used to start new restoration plots, replacing plants and soil lost to trampling and erosion over a century or more. The work was to continue in summer 2024.

Volunteers helped carry soil to the summits. NPS photo by Jack Byrley.

Fall colour. Dr. Stephanie Spera, a Second Century Stewardship Fellow and professor at the University of Richmond, published a widely reported study showing that fall foliage is peaking later as temperatures rise. It combined satellite images with visitors' photographs of the autumn leaves, a new approach.

Telling people about it. Catherine Devine, a Cathy and Jim Gero Acadia Early-Career Fellow in Science Communication, produced three new episodes of the park's podcast, Sea to Trees, on restoring summit habitats and on recording birds and birdsong and how they are changing.

Citizen science. Kyle Lima, a data analyst at the Schoodic Institute, began a long-term project to show what the park learns from the thousands of observations citizen scientists send in each year, especially of birds and plants. The records show which species are where and when, help spot species that are a management priority, and are used to train AI analyses of birdsong in the park. They can be explored online through iNaturalist or at a kiosk in the Rockefeller Hall Welcome Center on the Schoodic Institute campus.

The year in numbers

Scientists also published at least 39 papers, theses and reports using data or fieldwork from Acadia, more than in most years.

What the permits covered

Research in the park needs a permit, and the year's permits give a sense of its range:

• Wildlife and biodiversity: winter waterbirds, island seabirds and migrating seabirds and hawks watched from Schoodic Point; bats and white-nose syndrome, and the food available to bats and birds; spotted salamanders breeding in coastal vernal pools; environmental DNA for threatened turtles; stickleback fish and their parasites; brook trout that use the sea in Stanley Brook; mosquitoes; light pollution; and eBird and iNaturalist observations.
• Intertidal and marine: king tides and storms; salt marsh elevation; microplastics and ocean acidification on rocky shores; seaweed, eelgrass and Jonah crabs; clams in the mudflats; long-term monitoring of the rocky intertidal; and gathering protocols developed with tribal plant gatherers.
• Plants: the persistence of Pinus banksiana, forest health and tree regeneration after extreme weather; rare plants on Cadillac Mountain; genetic diversity in summit restorations; the wetland at Great Meadow; and the genus Russula in spruce-fir habitats.
• Visitor studies: carriage road use, how visitors choose transport, new hikers on northeastern trails, dark skies, sound, and licence plate readers.
• Freshwater and air: lake monitoring, freshwater wetlands, PFAS, microplastics in streams, and mercury measured in dragonfly larvae.
• Pests, diseases and invasive species: southern pine beetle, the browntail moth, emerald ash borer and beech leaf disease.
• Cultural resources: non-invasive monitoring of archaeological sites.
• Geology: soil exploration in the Schoodic Education Adventure programme.

Among the 39 publications:

• the effect of climate change on when fall foliage peaks in Acadia (Spera and others);
• a 51-year record of change in the park's winter birds along the Maine coast (Lima and others);
• streamflow estimates for Acadia's streams at low flow, from the U.S. Geological Survey (Lombard);
• overabundant deer and invasive plants holding back forest regeneration in eastern national parks (Miller and others);
• dragonfly larvae as monitors of mercury (Willacker and others);
• Wabanaki knowledge and research methods in restoring sweetgrass harvesting in the park (Greenlaw);
• visitors' experience of the first year of timed-entry reservations on the Cadillac Mountain summit road (Stanley).

Corrected: the NPS article places Dr. Spera at "Richmond University"; it is the University of Richmond.

Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.

Sources

• National Park Service, Acadia National Park, "2023 Acadia Science Year in Review." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/2023-acadia-science-year-in-review.htm
• Acadia National Park, Science and Research: https://www.nps.gov/acad/learn/nature/scienceresearch.htm
• Spera SA, KR Spangler, MO Hubert, MG Gorman, "The effects of climate change on the timing of peak fall foliage in Acadia National Park," Landscape Ecology, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01703-0
• Lima KA, S Benz, PR Nelson, W Townsend, NA Fisichelli, "Acadia National Park winter birds: 51 years of change along the coast of Maine," Northeastern Naturalist, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1656/045.029.0404
• Lombard PJ, USGS Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5126, 2023. https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20225126