April 7th, 2022 – The Appalachian Mountain Club, along with Berks Nature, hosted a webinar to introduce our iNaturalist community-science project, Flowers and Fauna Along the Appalachian Trail Corridor.
Follow this LINK to watch a recording of the webinar.
Follow this LINK to view the slide deck.
This webinar recording provides the opportunity to educate local outdoor enthusiasts of all levels and diverse backgrounds on the importance of studying the on-set of Spring and which flowers are good indicators of that. You can help by observing plant flowering and other annual life stages allowing us to determine how seasons unfold over the 2,100+ mile tread way. Many hands are needed to observe in mountains and surrounding lowlands because of natural variation and the lack of on-the-ground information in complex landscapes.
Participants and viewers are also taught how to join our iNaturalist project, Flowers and Fauna along the Appalachian Trail Corridor, and how to contribute to the data. Our purpose is to generate thousands of observations along the Appalachian Trial Corridor, to study the impacts climate change may be having on flowering plants in the Mid-Atlantic region.
The scientists at AMC are asking the questions of how plant flowering times varies with longitude, latitude, and elevation in mountains and whether some plants are stronger responders to climate shifts in the Appalachians than others. Collecting data year after year in mountains will build the dataset and allow them to compare plant response in different seasons.
More information about the project can be found at: Help track flowers and fauna along the Appalachian Trail with iNaturalist – Appalachian Mountain Club (outdoors.org)
Follow this LINK to watch a recording of the webinar.
Follow this LINK to view the slide deck.