The Maine Vernal Pool Mapping and Assessment Program: engaging municipal officials and private landowners in community-based citizen science.

Community-based Strategies for Strengthening Science and Influencing Policy: Vernal Pool Initiatives in Maine

Improving management of small natural features on private lands by negotiating the science-policy boundary for Maine vernal pools.

Vernal pools are far more important for providing ecosystem services than one would predict based on their small size. However, prevailing resource-management strategies are not effectively conserving pools and other small natural features on private lands. Solutions are complicated by tensions between private property and societal rights, uncertainties over resource location and function, dive...

Statewide mapping and assessment of vernal pools: a New Jersey case study.

In 2001, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) adopted rules specifically protecting vernal pool habitat for the first time. Vernal pools are small isolated temporary bodies of water that provide critical breeding habitat for a number of amphibian species. To implement these rules and ultimately afford vernal pools protection, the NJDEP first needed to assemble a statewi...

Integrating published data and citizen science to describe bird diversity across a landscape

1. Knowledge of species diversity across a landscape is essential for answering ecological questions and developing conservation and management goals and protocols. However, data on species occurrence are often limited, with the consequence that species lists are incomplete. 2. As a means to develop a complete species occurrence list for an urbanizing landscape in south-eastern Michigan, USA, a...

An Effective Method for Detecting Potential Woodland Vernal Pools Using High-Resolution LiDAR Data and Aerial Imagery

Effective conservation of woodland vernal pools—important components of regional amphibian diversity and ecosystem services—depends on locating and mapping these pools accurately. Current methods for identifying potential vernal pools are primarily based on visual interpretation and digitization of aerial photographs, with variable accuracy and low repeatability. In this paper, we present an ef...