Islands in the Sky

Dear Northeast Alpine Flower Watch members,

Thank you for contributing photos of alpine flowers & fruits. While waiting for next year's Spring bloom, you can explore alpine flora and assist with climate research by joining our online expedition "Islands in the Sky" to uncover historic records of alpine plant biodiversity at the New York Botanical Garden!

Diapensia lapponica

To understand how alpine plants are responding and adapting to their changing climate, the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) and Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) have teamed up with citizen scientists around the world to track geographic distributions and seasonal changes in these alpine species. Using herbarium records, AMC researchers will be able to continue this investigation using historic records of alpine species collected during the past 200 years.

This is where you the citizen scientists come in! Our researchers need lots of help to collect data from recently digitized herbarium records of alpine species and other mountain plants. Specifically, we need help documenting when, where, and by whom each historic plant specimen was collected from the wild. Anyone with a computer and access to the internet can participate in this project by joining our virtual expedition on the Notes from Nature crowdsourcing platform. From there, you can view images of preserved plant specimens, interpret and transcribe key details from their collection labels, and report directly to scientists at the AMC and around the world who will use your data to understand and help protect these unique alpine plants.

Posted on September 23, 2019 08:12 PM by annie_evankow annie_evankow

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