2012 Maine Invasive Species Network Meeting

Submitted by gmri on Wed, 2012-05-23 20:58
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    On Thursday, April 26, Christine had the pleasure of attending this year’s Maine Invasive Species Network (MISN) meeting at the Viles Arboretum in Augusta. Here are some of her highlights:



  • I got to sit at a table and talk with 3 amazing species experts and cool cats: Paul Gregory, Ann Gibbs, and Karen Hahnel.



  • I got to tell some interested attendees about Vital Signs. There was a lot of interest. We might soon have some new species experts and high school students participating.



  • There was a really fascinating keynote presentation by Abe Miller-Rushing, Science Coordinator for Acadia National Park, on climate change and invasive species. Much of what his talk was about is also in these articles:

    • The essence of his talk was that with climate change there will be species that win and lose, and the best predictor of who the winners will be is how good a species is at "tracking" or changing the timing of it's events to match changing climate. Surprise, surprise! Invasives tend to be better at this. If you go in the woods in early spring (might be too late now unless you're up north) you might notice that the plants that are leafing out tend to be:

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    It will be interesting to follow these species and look at changes in their phenology (the timing of events like leaf out and bud burst) over time using Vital Signs species observations. If you’re interested in doing more with your Vital Signs data, you might also enjoy sharing phenology data regularly with Signs of the Seasons.

    Enjoy the warm weather!