Science Knows No Bounds

Welcome to July everyone! We are officially in the thick of summer. I hope you all are staying cool and catching some rays outside. This week, I wanted to highlight the official boundaries of our project.

The New England Trail Nature Watch encompasses the New England Trail Corridor. But what makes up that corridor? Well, it's a bit complicated. When designing this research project, the Appalachian Mountain Club sought to maximize participation while also allowing for accuracy. We are using the New England Trail as a natural transect, or line which is used in ecology to allow for systematic sampling of an area. By measuring along the trail, we can more easily understand how the surrounding region is changing with climate change. Even though the trail is not a perfectly straight line, its extension through 2 states over 215 miles provides a great representation of the ecology of Southern New England.

Now, to the corridor. We decided that a natural buffer in the form of watersheds would be a suitable approach. The AMC landed on HUC10 watersheds, as defined by the USGS here. The resulting buffer is a corridor extending 15-20 miles on either side of the trail. The corridor encompasses over 1 million acres of land, open spaces and conservations areas. To visualize this, you can see the iNaturalist Places by state: Massachusetts here and Connecticut here.

Our hope is that this watershed based boundary allows for you all to explore both on and off the trail. I appreciate all observations you submit and can't wait to see what else you all find this summer! Happy observing!

Publicado el martes, 05 de julio de 2022 a las 07:04 PM por grace_piselli grace_piselli

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