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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Monitoring Vegetation Change By Using Remote Sensing: An Examination Of Visitor-Induced Impact At Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, Min Kook Kim May 2010

Monitoring Vegetation Change By Using Remote Sensing: An Examination Of Visitor-Induced Impact At Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, Min Kook Kim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cadillac Mountain, the highest peak along the eastern seaboard in the United States, is a major visitor destination at Acadia National Park. Managing vegetation impact on the summit of Cadillac Mountain is extremely challenging given the number of users and dispersed nature of visitor use at this fragile environmental setting. Since 2000, more intensive management strategies based on placing physical barriers to protect threatened vegetation and leave no trace signs have been employed to reduce vegetation impact and enhance vegetation recovery in the vicinity of the summit loop trail. A number of different change detection techniques and high resolution remote …


Dynamics Of Forest Structure Under Different Silvicultural Regimes In The Acadian Forest, Michael R. Saunders May 2006

Dynamics Of Forest Structure Under Different Silvicultural Regimes In The Acadian Forest, Michael R. Saunders

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research plots in many long-term studies of forest ecosystems often cannot be used for spatial modeling because of their small scale and nested inventory design. This has been unfortunate as these plots represent some of the best records of structural development as affected by forest management. I developed methodologies to reconstruct both tree height growth and spatial pattern in these types of plots from historical inventory records and stem-mapped data, and then retrospectively investigated 3-dimensional structural development as affected by five silvicultural and harvesting treatments (unmanaged natural area, commercial clearcut, fixed-diameter limit, 5-year selection, and 3-stage shelterwood— with and without …


Revegetating Blackwoods Campground, Acadia National Park: Emphasis On Natural Regeneration Of Red Spruce And Balsam Fir, Cristin O'Brien Jan 2005

Revegetating Blackwoods Campground, Acadia National Park: Emphasis On Natural Regeneration Of Red Spruce And Balsam Fir, Cristin O'Brien

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Blackwoods Campground in Acadia National Park has a declining vegetative understory, characterized by a lack of tree seedling recruitment and shrub populations. This project was embarked upon to identify limiting factors to tree seedling establishment and shrub survival. From these studies, management plans will be developed for revegetating the campground understory. To better understand the factors that inhibit successful seedling establishment, we investigated the effects of varying soil moisture levels on seed germination, seedling survival and seedling dry mass accumulation for red spruce and balsam fir. We also studied the effect of organic layer depth on seedling growth for both …


Determining Atmospheric Deposition Inputs To Two Small Watersheds At Acadia National Park, Sarah J. Nelson May 2002

Determining Atmospheric Deposition Inputs To Two Small Watersheds At Acadia National Park, Sarah J. Nelson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Two small upland watersheds have been gauged and monitored at Acadia National Park since 1998. Cadillac Brook watershed burned in a wildfire in 1947. Hadlock Brook watershed has been undisturbed for several centuries, and serves as the reference site. Precipitation and throughfall volume and chemistry data have been collected using wetonly and continuously open collectors. Hydrologic and chemical inputs to the sites have been determined for each site. Differences in watershed and vegetation characteristics control the input of water and major ions to these watersheds. Vegetation type was the dominant control on enhancement of precipitation across the heterogeneous watersheds. Relative …


Fire And Its Effects On Mercury And Methylmercury Dynamics For Two Watersheds In Acadia National Park, Maine, Kenneth B. Johnson May 2002

Fire And Its Effects On Mercury And Methylmercury Dynamics For Two Watersheds In Acadia National Park, Maine, Kenneth B. Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cross-continental movement of contaminated air masses and prevailing wind direction. Sites covered with softwood vegetation also received higher Hg deposition than other vegetation types because of the higher scavenging efficiency of the canopy structure. MeHg deposition was not affected by these factors. Hg deposition was lower in Cadillac Brook watershed (burned) than in Hadlock Brook watershed (unburned) because regeneration after the fire was dominated by mixed hardwood, whereas softwoods dominate the landscape in Hadlock Brook watershed. The lower deposition could also be a result of the watershed aspect; Cadillac Brook watershed faces southeast to east and Hadlock Brook watershed faces …


Visitor Behaviors And Resource Impacts At Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, Rex Turner Jan 2001

Visitor Behaviors And Resource Impacts At Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, Rex Turner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The summit of Cadillac Mountain, located in Maine's Acadia National Park, can be reached via three hiking trails and a scenic auto road. This site attracts over an estimated two million visitors per year. Most of this visitation is concentrated from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The sensitive sub-alpine nature of the site, coupled with high visitation rates, has created a scenario where significant vegetation and soil damage occurs. Additionally, Acadia National Park has experienced chronic problems at this site stemming from visitors altering, destroying, or constructing cairns (pyramid shaped piles of rocks built by trail crews to mark trails …