Rebirth at Schoodic
It’s fun to watch the facilities at the Schoodic Education and Research Center come back to life. As activities ramp up this summer, I have begun spending a good part of most days in an office in a building that used to serve as the medical and dental facility on the Navy base. The attraction to this particular building is that it serves as the working space for a number of the scientists who are on the campus this summer.
Next door to me is Gabby Voeller, a Bates College student who is working with Dr. Holly Ewing on research related to the chemical makeup of the fogs that move over the Schoodic Peninsula. In general, Dr. Ewing is looking at factors contributing to the makeup of soil chemistry in the Park. Fogs are particularly important, both because they are a significant source of precipitation at Acadia and because fogs tend to carry high concentrations of chemicals than does rain. Gabby is maintaining a fog collector on Schoodic Point in order to gather data about sulfates, phosphates, and nitrates. Gabby must be a very happy researcher–if fog is what you are looking for, Schoodic has been a rich resource this past month.
Across the hall is Dr. Aimee Phillippi of Unity College. She and two students from Unity are working in the intertidal zones around Schoodic to quantify the current population of Asian shore crabs (Hemigrapsus sanguineus) in the area. Asian shore crabs are an invasive species that has had a significant impact on other intertidal crab species and bivalves in areas to the south and west of Schoodic. Dr. Phillippi’s research, which is funded by Acadia Partners, will characterize crab and bivalve populations in advance of any impact from an Asian shore crab invasion.
Down the hall is the workroom used by the archeologists and anthropologists who are engaged in the shell midden excavation that we reported on earlier this month. (See the story.) The word from Dr. Brian Robinson, who is leading this effort, is that they are finding a large number of artifacts and that this effort will add useful insight to the research that was done at this same site in the 1920s.
Later this week Dr. Kathy Tonnesen will be returning to continue work on the Acadia National Park Research Opportunities Catalog. The catalog will provide researchers with an overview of the scientific work that is most important and most needed by the Park. The catalog will also identify the areas in which the Park can serve as a valuable resource and outdoor laboratory for scientific questions that reach beyond the Park’s own management concerns. Dr. Tonnesen’s work this summer builds on a set of workshops earlier this year that engaged 50 scientists in identifying Park needs. For more insight into this work, see our news story from back in March, or — for even more detail — review the notes from the working sessions with the scientists.
Then, this weekend, Dr. Dan Decker, professor in the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell, will arrive to begin his tenure as Acadia National Park’s Scientist in Residence this summer. He will help the park develop a strategic wildlife management plan that integrates concerns about wildlife populations and ecosystem health with human dimensions and interactions. Visit the Human Dimensions Research Unit website at Cornell for more information about Dr. Decker’s work.
In a couple weeks Dr. Elizabeth Jakob of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst will arrive to resume her spider research. For the last three years, Dr. Jakob and her team from the University of Massachusetts have been studying an invasive European spider, Linyphia triangularis, in Acadia National Park. Her work is documenting the extent and spread of the invasion on Schoodic and is studying the impact of the invasion on native spider species.
Seeing all of this activity at the former medical/dental building is exciting for a number of reasons. First, all of this work will give us a better understanding of the natural and cultural resources at Acadia–which is, of course, the reason for creating Acadia Partners and SERC. But is also good just to see these facilities in use. The climate here at Schoodic is not gentle, and buildings that are not opened and put to use deteriorate. One key to preserving this facility so that it can serve the Park over the long term is putting it to work now. As I walk around campus, I sometimes have a real sense that the clock is running in the race to realize the potential of this research and teaching campus.
I also enjoy seeing this new surge of activity because I live and work here on Schoodic. If we are successful in this effort to turn the Schoodic Education and Research Center into a place that attracts scientists, educators, artists, and students, the Center will become an important part of the community here on the Schoodic Peninsula and in the towns stretching along the coast. It already generates economic activity, and more use will result in more of that. But use of these facilities is important for reasons that go beyond dollars and cents. Seeing the students working on research projects in this building with me this summer–and seeing students with laptops under umbrellas on the deck of the Schooner Club– reminds me of the potential to use SERC as a place that attracts young people and that engages them in interesting, useful work.
We’ve gotten something important started here.