Our Research Goals
Vital Signs is designed to satisfy many different inquiries, curiosities, and research questions around species and habitats in Maine. While flexible and responsive to individual and classroom interests, we are at the same time very focused on invasive species and how they affect Maine's native species and habitats. The research questions driving our first year of data collection are:
The magnitude of student involvement promises to build a heightened level of public awareness and a meaningful body of scientific knowledge that is essential for biologists and resource managers committed to addressing invasive species issues.
David Littell, Maine Department of Environmental Protection
Where are the invasive species in Maine?
Invasive species affect Maine's native species and natural ecosystem processes, impact our economy, and influence our relationship with and reliance on our environment. Knowing where invasive species are will help scientists and resource managers target their own research efforts most efficiently. Finding invasive species before they establish populations will keep Maine relatively free of invasive species compared with states to our south and west.
Where aren't they?
Knowing where a species has been looked for but not found is just as important as knowing where it has been found. It offers critical insight into species ranges, seasonal or annual fluctuations, species movement, and habitat preferences. It establishes an important baseline of information from which we can see how a place changes with time.
What native species and habitats do they affect?
Maine is renowned for its varied and relatively untouched coastal, freshwater, and upland ecosystems. In addition to gaining an intimate appreciation of place, familiarity with our native species will help us catch new species introductions or changes to local habitats more quickly. Should an invasive species establish itself, having a baseline understanding of the native population will allow important insight into how the species influences and changes its new environment.
Our Research Community
Like no other program, Vital Signs creates a collaborative foundation for students, scientists and resource managers to respond rapidly to new environmental threats to Maine while providing essential experience to the next generation of its citizen scientists.
Paul Gregory, Environmental Specialist, Maine Department of Environmental Protection
Maine is a big place. Looking for native and invasive species along Maine's 32,000 miles of rivers and streams, 6,000 lakes and ponds, 5,000 miles of coastline, and millions of acres of forests, fields, and developed areas is a sizable challenge.
But Maine is poised for action with its high-speed network of 32,000 middle school students, its forward-thinking teachers, its passionate citizen scientist community, and its committed invasive species scientists and natural resource managers. Everyone...novices...experts... together...will make meaningful contributions to this effort. Here's who and how.
We are mobilizing 7th and 8th grade teachers and students statewide to investigate local habitats as they learn science in authentic, applied ways.
We are engaging citizen scientists to collect data, assist students in the classroom and field, steward our online community, and inspire the next generation of citizen scientists.
Connect scientists with this distributed network
We are connecting scientists with this distributed network of students, teachers, and citizens to ensure rigorous, scientifically useful results that will make a difference. Scientists and resource managers are ready to use Vital Signs data to better understand the impact invasive species may have on our native species and habitats.
We invite you to join us as a citizen scientist, teacher, student, or scientist. Share with us which native and invasive species live in your favorite pond, saltmarsh, forest, roadside, or secret corner of Maine. Join us. It won't be the same without you.
