by Catherine Schmitt, Science Communication Specialist with Schoodic Institute Due to health and safety concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, many local, state, and national parks have closed, including Acadia National Park, after experiencing a surge of visitors seeking solace and space during otherwise stressed and isolated days of social distancing. Of course people are seeking […]
by Catherine Schmitt About one-fourth of all mammals (nearly 1,000 species) on Earth are bats, a misunderstood and underappreciated denizen of the night. Many bat populations are declining from various causes, ranging from destruction of their nesting caves and other habitats to “white nose” disease caused by an invasive fungus. Since it emerged in New […]
2017 Second Century Stewardship Fellow Alessio Mortelliti, University of Maine assistant professor of wildlife habitat conservation, has been awarded an $875,000 National Science Foundation CAREER Award to study the ecosystem consequences of small animal personalities. According to Mortelliti, most classical ecological models consider all members of a population to be more or less identical. However, […]
2019 was a big year for Second Century Stewardship. We awarded three new fellowships for research in Acadia National Park. The fellowships act as a catalyst to strengthen relationships between park resource managers and the research community, while generating knowledge that is being applied to park management. We describe this in more detail in an […]
Second Century Stewardship is featured in the inaugural edition of Parks Stewardship Forum, The Interdisciplinary Journal of Place-Based Conservation, published by the University of California Berkeley’s Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity and the George Wright Society. This new open-access journal will “serve the global stewards of parks, protected areas, cultural sites, and other forms […]
The Minamata Convention on Mercury is a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury. Signatories met in Geneva, Switzerland in November 2019. The Second Century Stewardship film segment on the Dragonfly Mercury Project was shared with the conference of parties by the North American delegation. The Convention […]
National Parks include within their boundaries pockets and patches where temperatures stay cool even when the surrounding landscape is heating up. Scientists call such places “climate change refugia.” Knowing how habitats and species will shift in the future can guide management of landscapes in the present. A recent article in The Working Waterfront featured the […]
2019 Second Century Stewardship Fellow Stephanie Spera wrote an article about her fall foliage research for The Conversation, an independent nonprofit journalism outlet that works with leading scholars across academia to share their knowledge with the public. Spera also spoke with scientist and science journalist Heather Goldstone, host of Living Lab Radio. SCS communications training […]
Over the next three years, Second Century Stewardship partners at Schoodic Institute will be working with researchers at University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island School of Design, and the National Park Service to help evaluate Nor’easter storm impact modeling results, visualization tools, and their potential uses and misuses, and working with each park to create […]
BAR HARBOR, ME – Your old vacation photographs of Acadia National Park in autumn could help scientists research changes in fall foliage. Fall in Acadia seems to be arriving later, as warm temperatures extend longer into September and October. But are the leaves changing color later, too? Stephanie Spera, assistant professor of geography at University […]
