The Ecology of an Island

I recently finished an updated report of my project on the Flora of Little Duck Island, Maine: An Ecological Study. I am submitting this report to Acadia National Park and the National Audubon Society, so there may be some further edits in the near future.

Here it is if anyone wants to download it. The file is 13.8megs, so just keep that in mind if you have a slow download speed (Right-click and "save as" or just click to open in the browser). The link is from my College of the Atlantic advisor (Chris Petersen's) webpage.

Please send me any comments or questions about it. I would be interested to discuss.

Plant Identification

Hypericum spp. (Photo: Matt Dickinson)

       I have been trying to focus on finishing the identification of the pressed plant collection from Little Duck Island. Jordan Chalfant (another student) and Matthew Dickinson have been a tremendous help with this. I have also sent out some of the more difficult specimens to local botanists such as Glen Mittelhauser, Jill Weber, Sal Rooney, and Arthur Haines. Glen, Jill, and Sal are some of the co-authors on a recent book: The Plants of Acadia National Park.

Arthur Haines is co-author on The Flora of Maine, and the author of the soon to be printed Flora Novae Angliae (Flora of New England). I am indebted to these botanists' wonderful generosity and help with identifying the LDI plants.

 

Streptopus lanceolatus from LDI (Photo: Matt Dickinson)

Monotropa uniflora from LDI (Photo: Matt Dickinson)

Little Duck Island, Goldenrods, and more

Check the Little Duck Island tab above. I'll be updating it shortly with more.
Also, I am working on another webpage for making a vegetative key to Goldenrods. Check the tab above for a link to that site. That should be up in the next few weeks.

I will be back soon.

More summer pics...

The moon and lighthouse of Great Duck Island

Great Duck and Great Black-Backed seen from Little Duck

Lots of Angelica lucida on Little Duck

One of many Bald Eagles on Little Duck

Life this summer... (Photo by N. Rajakaruna)

Matt and I on Mount Desert Rock at the end of the summer. (Photo by N. Rajakaruna)

GIS and LDI

The last two weeks have been really busy with school starting plus all the extracurricular botanical fun I've been having. One of my classes is on GIS--Geographic Information System--using ArcGIS software. For those unfamiliar with GIS, Wikipedia has a good site describing the subject. Essentially it is a system that allows someone to create dynamic maps in which every shape, point, or line has tables of data associated with it. This allows one to view data in a spatial way--something essential for understanding ecological processes. It has opened up a new world for me in this way. I knew a bit about GIS before taking this class thanks to my exposure to it in high school, but I never fully grasped the potential that it offers.

For a Little Duck Island update:
I am currently in the stages of uploading my GPS--Global Positioning System--data from Little Duck Island and beginning to process it. I am also working on computerizing the data from the beat-up Rite-in-the-Rain notebooks. Finally I am almost ready to send out my soil samples for analysis. More on this soon.

Finally, here are some pics from the summer: (Click on them to see them bigger)

Waves on Little Duck Island

Great Duck Island to my left

My wonderful field assistant/imaginary friend Matt Dickinson

 

Collecting Fragaria virginiana!

We filled ourselves on these in June

Working on a plot on the south end of the island (note Great Duck in the distance)

Our camp sweet camp

Plant presses provided a nice reading table in our room

One of out last nights on the island (note Mount Desert Island on the horizon)

Petrels, plants, and more

Ok, I'm back on board again--well, I'll be fully back after this next week. Let me explain.

There is an island about 8 miles off the coast of Bar Harbor, Maine, called Little Duck Island. The island is about 80 acres in size and botanically unexplored--meaning few have ever tried to identify all of the plants on the island. A few plants were collected from the island around 1900, but nothing besides that. There is a nearby island called Great Duck Island. Although three-times bigger, Great Duck was thoroughly inventoried (practically all plants and animals) in 1985 (Folger and Wayne, 1986).

I'm currently applying for grants to conduct a floristic inventory of Little Duck this summer. If this all works out, it will be an great opportunity to learn a lot about Maine flora and ecology. However, I'm also really excited about comparing Little Duck to Great Duck. Great Duck is a home for hundreds of European varying hares, but Little Duck is not. There are also possible differences in how much bird guano affects the soils on each island.

The differences in flora between the two islands could mean drastic changes of habitat over the years. If--as I have heard--it is true that there is no forest regrowth on Great Duck (due to the hares eating all the saplings?) then it means Great Duck is slowly becoming deforested.

You may be thinking, well geez Luka, Little and Great Duck Islands are these tiny specs of earth and rock on the ocean, WHY would I ever care what happens on Little or Great Duck Island? Well, reader-of-my-blog, your question is valuable because it addresses a long standing issue in the world of conservation. I can give you a short answer for now, but I would be very interested in regaining this topic in a future blog post.

My understanding is that the coastal spruce habitat on Great Duck Island (and possibly Little Duck) is essential for Leach's Storm-petrel--a small but fascinating seabird. Great Duck currently holds the largest breeding population of these birds--about 5000 pairs (http://www.coa.edu/html/greatduckbirds.htm). If the old spruce trees on the island die without saplings arising, then a large population of Leach's Storm-petrel will have to find a new home--not something easy to do given their specific living conditions.

So essentially, the study I hope to do this summer will help shed some light on this issue, perhaps uncovering new observations relating the presence of hares and forest regeneration, or perhaps the effect of excessive guano affecting the diversity of plants. These results could have the potential of influencing conservation policies--helping preserve populations of Leach's Storm-petrel.

I won't even mention Black Guillemots or the possibility of discovering rare plants.

Let me know if you have any comments or questions,

I will be back after I finish writing grants by Friday.

Be well,
Luka

I haven't posted anything in a while. Unfortunately my internet situation is rather sparce so I have not been able to do much with the Botanical Society website.

Otherwise, all is going pretty well. I am currently working on grant applications for a project next summer. I'm going to be surveying the flora of Little Duck Island off the coast of Maine. I'll post more about this project later.

Happy Holidays to everyone! I'll be in good email/blog contact starting in January.

Peacful winter solstice,
Luka