Greetings from your 2023 Scientists in the Park (SIP) intern!

Happy Memorial Day, iNaturalists, and welcome back to the New England Trail Nature Watch project!

I am Luis Berrizbeitia, your 2023 New England Trail SIP intern coming to you in partnership with the National Park Service (NPS) and Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC). I am a natural resources conservation major at UMass Amherst, with a passion for understanding ecological processes through space and time. I am an avid canoeist, hiker, and greenwood worker, and cannot wait to get this project’s second season underway!

The importance of community scientists cannot be understated, and it is especially relevant to the stewardship needs of the NET. I wanted to express my sincerest thank you and appreciation for your hard work last season! Your observations were critical to acquiring crucial plant phenology data that is helping NPS and AMC scientists understand how climate change is impacting south central New England. Without your hard work and contributions, this endeavor would not have been possible.

I also wanted to thank 2022 New England Trail SIP intern, Grace Piselli, who got this project underway. I have some large shoes to fill, but I know with your help we can continue to collect crucial data that will give us insights into how climate change is affecting our area.

Last season, over 1000 of you contributed to 3000+ observations! The analysis of your data paved the way for the creation of baseline metrics we can now use for the investigation of phenology events along the New England Trail (check out Grace’s last post!). Our observations from this season will add to this dataset and facilitate further scientific exploration.

Be on the lookout for calls to action, bioblitz’s, community hikes, and prizes for our most active contributors! Thank you again, and let’s get observing!!

Best,
Luis :)

Publicado el 29 de mayo de 2023 por luisberrizbeitia