Hey MeadoWatchers!

My name is Jose Esparza, and I am an undergrad at the University of California Los Angeles as well as a Duke Doris Conservation Scholar intern. You may remember me from a previous blog post. :)

This summer I am working with the Hille Ris Lambers lab on a research project. Our goal is to learn more about current, former, and potential future MeadoWatch volunteers – mainly who you are, why you joined, and what you get out of participating. I will share this information with Janneke, and we hope to use it to improve the program! Additionally, this information will help us develop an outreach / recruitment plan to ensure the MeadoWatch community of citizen scientist volunteers is fully representative of our region’s diversity.

Many of you will receive an email with the same information and a link to the surveys that I will also be attaching here. I invite you to participate in my research and would appreciate your participation in the survey regarding interest in parks, climate change, and participation in research efforts. Your results will be valuable to my summer research, the lab, and MeadoWatch in general, and all surveys are anonymous. Bellow is a link that will take you to the survey 
https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/jaesparz/336470

Thank you all for being volunteers! I have very much enjoyed meeting with some of you in person and hope to get to meet more of you on the trails. Please contact me if you would be interested in speaking with me and helping me more with my research. You can contact me through email at esparzajose1234@gmail.com.

Just a quick update: it looks like the Reflection Lakes hike is mostly melted out. The snow bridge near plot 2 is gone with little water running through, so crossing the stream should be no problem! The hike is as beautiful as ever, and the wildflowers are out and blooming. As you reach higher elevations, past plot 7, you can still find quite a bit of snow out but all eleven plots are uncovered and can be accessed. Plenty of MeadoWatch plant species are out and in abundance. If you are scheduled to hike sometime this week, you can expect great weather conditions.

Best,  

Jose Esparza

​

Carol Miltimore, A MeadoWatch volunteer (since 2013!), hiked the Reflection Lakes Trail, taking many pictures of the plots and providing us with a great early season snapshot of trail and plot conditions. Below, I share some of the pictures and observations she made. Thanks for sharing, Carol!

​Hi MeadoWatchers,

My name is Kyra Kaiser, and I am an undergraduate assistant helping Dr. HilleRisLambers with her fieldwork this summer, and I have seen some of you on the MeadoWatch trails! I am an undergraduate at University of Washington, and I recently finished a research project studying one of MeadoWatch’s focal species, Glacier lily. I hope that you have seen Glacier lily if you have been out on the trails lately! This plant is found at high elevations and blooms in brilliant yellow soon after snowmelt (see picture above).  After spending so much time researching Glacier lily, I was thrilled to meet my study species in person on Mount Rainier! 

Our lab (the HilleRisLambers lab) is particularly interested in nontraditional sources of data, such as data that is gathered by all of you volunteers. I studied another underutilized source of data for studying phenology, herbarium specimens. Herbarium specimens are plants that are collected, often during bloom, and preserved for research purposes. I used data on Glacier lily specimens collected across the Pacific Northwest from 1907 to 2015. I retrieved my data from the Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria, a group of herbaria in the Pacific Northwest that make information on their specimens available online. Some herbarium specimens in their collection date back to the late 1800s! Check out their website to see some impressive images of old pressed plants!  

Using a climate model, I obtained information on temperature and snowfall based on the collection year and location of where each Glacier lily specimen had been collected. Then, I analyzed the effects of different factors on the bloom time of Glacier lily. I estimated bloom time based on the date that a flowering specimen was collected. In the graph below, each dot represents one Glacier lily specimen (i.e. an observation of Glacier lily flowering). I found a strong relationship between the spring temperature of the specimen collection location and the flowering time of Glacier lily. Glacier lily blooms earlier in years with warmer spring temperatures.

If you pay attention to weather and flowers, this relationship might be intuitive. Warmer spring temperatures lead to earlier snowmelt, which allows early blooming flowers to pop up sooner. This trend has been confirmed by several studies (and MeadoWatch data!). However, since herbarium specimens are infrequently used as a source of data, I wanted to test if my results matched widely accepted trends. This would allow me to identify any hidden errors or internal biases present in herbarium specimen data as well as learn about the benefits and drawbacks of using this source of data. I discovered that herbarium specimen data does have some problems (e.g. missing and inaccurate specimen collection locations), I concluded that this source of 100+ years of data has a lot of potential if these obstacles are overcome.  

I hope that you and I will see more studies on herbarium specimens in the years to come!

​Best wishes, 

Kyra Kaiser​ 

Hello there MeadoWatchers,
​
                  In this post, I would like to highlight yet another look-a-like set of species; Northern Silverpuffs (Microseris borealis), and a MeadoWatch focal species, North Microseris or Smooth Mountain Dandelion (Nothocalais alpestris or Microseris alpestis).
​ 

​It may be summer in the lowlands, but for mountain plants (e.g. our focal species on the Reflection Lakes trail), it is still early in the season! This is because snow has been slow to melt from our Reflection Lakes MeadoWatch trail and surrounding meadows (as of July 8, about 80% of the trail is snow covered), and our focal plants can’t emerge and start to flower until that happens!
 
There both risks and rewards to early season hikes on our trails!
 
The rewards: you will get to see some of our earliest bloomers, Avalanche lily (abundant on our Reflection Lakes trail) and Glacier lily (abundant on our Glacier Basin Trail) – see some lovely examples in recent pictures above!
 
The challenges: we can’t place the markers until all the snow is gone, so even if you get to the sites, you’ll have to use the pictures and / or a GPS unit to find the plots – like a treasure hunt! For example, we have just one of our 11 trail markers out at Reflection Lakes (as of July 8th). You also will have to identify a lot of budding phenophases (see two examples below), as not much else besides the two lilies pictured above will be flowering.
 
The risks: You may need to navigate across snow, and avoid some the hazards associated with this (e.g. snow bridges – see example below), on the Reflection Lakes hike in the next week or so (week of July 10th and possibly 17th). If you are not comfortable crossing the creek (with or without snow), you have a couple of options. You may be able to access the upper plots (3-11) via the west branch of the High Lakes Trail (or even the fourth crossing trail from the Paradise creek), which allows you to avoid the creek.  Or, if you don't like snow at all, you can consider rescheduling to a Glacier Basin Hike (this hike is almost entirely snow free – not surprising since the east side of Mt. Rainier receives about half the snow that the southwest side does). Please don’t forget to also check our safety guidelines (includes some hints and tips about snow navigation).
 
 
Happy hiking! Janneke

Hey MeadoWatchers,

Plot markers are out and so are some of our focal species' flowers! I was out on the Glacier Basin Trail this weekend, and the recent summer heat has melted the snow across most of the trail. There are still some small patches of snow, above plot 8 (although I don't suspect it won't last too much longer), so be sure to step carefully and try to prevent trail erosion!

We collected lots of great data and many of our focal species are budding and blooming, with some species starting to set fruit (can you think of which early Glacier Basin species that might be?). Also, a big shout out to all the MeadoWatchers I ran into during lunch time at the top of the trail! It was such a pleasure to chat with you all!

​Here are a couple of interesting species ID notes to keep in mind while you are hiking this trail!

Sharptooth Angelica look-a-likes: I spotted three species (all in the Apiaceae, or Carrot family) that look similar to Sharptooth Angelica (Angelica arguta): Common Cow-parsnip (Heraclium maximum), Western Sweet-cicely (Ozmorhiza occidentalis), and don't forget about the Lovages (Ligusticum spp.)! 

• Cow-parsnip looks like Sharptooth Anglica on a body builder diet, in other words it is is much larger and more robust, with large palmately lobed leaves and very hairy stems. Seen around plots 2 through 4.
• Western Sweet-cicely is much smaller and more delicate than Sharptooth Angelica. It can be slightly confusing, as the leaves of O. occidentalis look like a shrunk down version of Sharptooth Angelica, however, the flowers are green and the umble inflorescence is much smaller (only about 5-12 umbellets). I spotted this species in plot 2, but keep an eye out for it else where. 
• Lovage... Gray's? I spotted a Ligusticum spp. in plots 14 and 16. Since it was only the vegetation it's hard to say which species it might be, but my best guess at this point is Gray's Lovage. Again, keep in mind, that Gray's Lovage (​Ligusticum gray) is much smaller and has more finely divided leaves than Sharptooth Angelica. Hopefully, we can confirm which species it is later in the season (calling all MeadoWatch Botany enthusiasts!).

Don't forget to share your trail updates and ID notes with us on Facebook or email us pictures!

​Happy IDing!

Your MeadoWatch Team (Emmi)

​