30 July 2004

Citizen monitoring of alpine plants

Citizen monitoring of alpine plants was on the agenda at the Northeastern Alpine Stewardship Gathering Friday on 18-19 June 2004. The meeting was co-hosted by the Appalachian Mountain Club and the White Mountain National Forest.

The program included a presentation on the Mountain Watch project by Georgia Murray of the Appalachian Mountain Club. Mountain Watch is a program in which citizen scientists will monitor alpine plants during hikes along mountain trails.

Alpine plants are useful indicators of climate change. For example, in a region that experiences warming, alpine plants will migrate upward in elevation. The reverse is true in regions that experience cooling. Thus, careful observations and reporting by citizen scientists can provide important information on trends and changes that might be occurring in mountain environments.

The concept behind Mountain Watch is described by Ryan J. Harvey in a paper he wrote in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Natural Resources at Paul Smith's College, December 1, 2003. Harvey's mentor was Georgia Murray. The abstract of Harvey's paper is available as a PDF file here.

For more information about the very rare alpine environments of the Northeastern U.S., see Kenneth Kimball's special report "Promoting stewardship of unique alpine ecosystems" in The Mountain Ear, 17 July 2004. The report is online at www.mountainear.com/news/newsstories/AT3L7H.nclk

Forrest M. Mims III