Acadia National Park is home to several low-elevation ⛰️ with alpine or subalpine 🌸, thought to be remnants of tundra that tracked the melting glaciers northward some 13,000 years ago. What does their long history of persistence mean for these plants in a warming world?
#BEASTLab undergraduate Cas Carroll (they/them) wanted to find out! They worked with former postdoc @CaitlinInMaine (she/her) on a sediment core from Sargent Mountain Pond to identify plant macrofossils—fragments of leaves, needles, and seeds from plants growing around the pond.
Cas’ senior capstone at @UMaine has now been published as part of a special issue of @FrontEcolEvol devoted to conservation paleobiology—using the past to help inform how we manage and protect biodiversity. Check it out: frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…
They found that cool-climate 🌲 🌱 🌸 persisted on Sargent Mountain during times when the regional climate was much warmer, suggesting peaks like this one are important climate “refugia,” pockets of milder climate where species can hold on in or retreat to.
The paleorecord—and especially plant macrofossils—can help us identify such refugia, which will help buffer ecosystems from climate change in the future. Identifying refugia also allows us to prioritize our conservation resources towards more at-risk ecosystems.
One really cool (ha!) aspect of this project is that Cas and Caitlin co-developed these questions with @AcadiaNPS scientists. Cas’ undergraduate capstone research will help the park manage these iconic mountain ecosystems as Maine’s climate warms.
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