Acadia Science, Spring 2022: New Stories, Papers and Research Permits

A spotted salamander on a fallen log. NPS.

This was the first of Acadia National Park's seasonal science roundups: new science content on the park's website, the research permitted so far for the year, and recently published papers.

The 2022 field season was just beginning, with studies of waterbirds and spring amphibian breeding — including an unusual population of spotted salamanders that breeds just above the intertidal zone. The park works with Schoodic Institute to make research more effective and better communicated, including managing research permits.

New on the park website

The coastal intertidal zone:

• Studying declines in sea stars
• The historical ecology of intertidal algae
• A day in the field with Hannah Webber
• Salt tolerance in spotted salamanders
• Sand Beach in winter
• A profile of acorn barnacles

Second Century Stewardship fellows at Schoodic Institute in the news:

• Rachel Fowler documents Acadia's lakes recovering from acid rain.
• Chris Nadeau finds cool microclimates will become biodiversity hotspots.
• Alessio Mortelliti is quoted in the New York Times on how animal personalities play surprising roles in nature.

Also:

• A brochure on how science protects Acadia.
• Acadia's science legacy, which sets today's work in centuries of research and links to historic data sets: marine algae and coastal vegetation; climate and air quality; lakes, streams and hydrology; freshwater protists; vascular plants; marine invertebrates; birds; and mammals.

Acadia science in the journals, 2022

Three stand out: the recovery of Acadia's lakes after acid rain (Fowler et al.), science for the new resist–accept–direct approach to managing parks in a changing climate (Crausbay et al.), and how cool spots in Acadia and other parks could become critical biodiversity refuges as the climate warms (Nadeau et al.).

• Crausbay et al., "A science agenda to inform natural resource management decisions in an era of ecological transformation," BioScience.
• Doser, "Development and application of hierarchical models for monitoring avian soundscapes, populations, and communities," dissertation, Michigan State University.
• Fowler, Warner, Gawley and Saros, "Paleolimnological comparison of algal changes in a clear- versus a brown-water lake over the last two centuries in northeastern U.S.A.," Journal of Paleolimnology.
• Grace, "General guidance for custom-built structural equation models," One Ecosystem.
• Halstead et al., "Looking ahead, guided by the past: The role of U.S. national parks in amphibian research and conservation," Ecological Indicators.
• Kim and Daigle, "Long-term monitoring of vegetation cover changes by remote sensing, Cadillac Mountain summit, Acadia National Park," Parks Stewardship Forum.
• Nadeau, Giacomazzo and Urban, "Cool microrefugia accumulate and conserve biodiversity under climate change," Global Change Biology.
• Nelson et al., "Introduction: Climate change in the mountains of Maine and the Northeast," Northeastern Naturalist.
• Taff et al., "US national park visitor experiences during COVID-19: Data from Acadia, Glacier, Grand Teton, Shenandoah, and Yellowstone National Parks," Parks Stewardship Forum.
• Van Kampen, Fisichelli, Zhang and Wason, "Drought timing and species growth phenology determine intra-annual recovery of tree height and diameter growth," AoB Plants.

Research permits issued so far in 2022

Doing research in Acadia

Researchers can apply through the park's research permits page. Science news organizations can start at the park's science news page.

Sources

Based on "Season of Science: Spring 2022," Acadia National Park, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. Typing errors in the source's lists (among them "DOVID-19" for COVID-19 in a paper's title) are corrected here.