#meadowatch

NPS Photo of arrowleaf groundsel, a common subalpine wildflower, and a hoverfly pollinator at Sunrise.

The blooming of Mount Rainier's gorgeous wildflower meadows is linked to the amount of snow on the ground. While this year the mountain had some late spring snow, pushing peak bloom into mid-August, last year the meadows melted out very early due to a heat wave. Changes in melt timing can affect how well young plants survive. Earlier snow melt can result in less soil moisture later in the season, making plants vulnerable to prolonged drought. Not all pollinators are tied to snowmelt but are active later in the summer. They may be too late to pollinate the blooms of their preferred flowers if the flowers bloom earlier in the season. This could mean that some wildflower species miss out on the chance to reproduce. Each meadow species responds differently, and wildflower season may end up stretching out, moving toward a time in which the 20-species-blooming-at-once-in-Paradise pictures are no longer possible.

NPS photo of numerous wildflowers blooming together in a subalpine meadow around Tipsoo Lake.

The University of Washington MeadoWatch program is a long-term citizen science program to track wildflower phenology in Mount Rainier’s meadows. Volunteers hike two routes, one near Reflection Lakes and the other in Glacier Basin, and note the species of wildflowers and their lifecycle stage, from budding to blooming to seeding, at certain points along the trail. The observations are repeated multiple times each summer and over multiple years to build a long-term data set used to understand the impacts of climate change in Mount Rainier National Park. To learn more and participate visit www.meadowatch.org.

NPS Photo of a MeadoWatch surveyor noting wildflower species at a location along a trail.

Happy Autumn, Volunteers! Here is a summary of our annual volunteer numbers for 2020:

Hours: 43,760.5 VIPs: 1,198

For comparison, here was 2019:

Hours: 69,481 VIPs: 2,420

Group volunteer participation was down especially dramatically this year, with a total of 314 people contributing 8,907 hours, when in a typical year we'd have twice that many people participating through WTA alone.

Overall, our volunteer numbers are 49.5% of what we reported in 2019, and volunteer hours are 63.0% of last year's.

The numbers are helped a bit by normal participation in October 2019 (since our report is by fiscal year, October through September) and over the winter pre-COVID (in spite of limitations from weather and the landslide that closed SR706 for a few weeks).

Many programs did not happen this year, or to a much more limited extent. The trails volunteer program, normally our most robust due to our partnership with WTA, was limited mostly to Northwest Youth Corps crews this year. In many programs, people chose to stay home due to COVID-19 risk, especially volunteers who belong to at-risk populations. Some programs that normally work with full-time volunteers or interns did not happen because we didn't have housing available. The Amphibian Survey citizen science program, like the WTA partnership, did not occur because we did not have housing for the supervisor.

At the same time, other programs continued, and adapted to offer safe alternatives for training and procedures, and the volunteers who did show up stepped up in a big way. We had only half our usual Meadow Rovers this year, but they turned in three quarters of last year's hours and 90% of last year's visitor contacts. The MeadoWatch and Cascades Butterfly Project citizen science programs remained robust, and a new bat survey program was welcomed enthusiastically by volunteers. (About a quarter of our volunteers participated in one or more citizen science projects.) And of course Mountain Rescue and Nordic Patrol were instrumental this year, not only with Search and Rescue but also Preventative Search and Rescue (PSAR) out of the new SAR Cabin.

Partners continued to help make it all happen: Washington's National Park Fund, the Mount Rainier National Park Associates, the Northwest Youth Corps, the Student Conservation Association, the University of Washington and The Evergreen State College. Other partners like WTA, The Mission Continues, and Starbucks couldn't safely participate due to the Pandemic but have expressed eagerness to return as soon as it's safe to do so.

We all hope for a more normal year next summer!

The MeadoWatch program, a volunteer opportunity offered at Mount Rainier by the University of Washington, has published a newsletter full of great scientific information gathered by last year’s Citizen Scientists! Check it out -- and don’t miss the information about 2018′s program.

One key discovery of the MeadoWatch program so far is that our extraordinary wildflowers are influenced as much by summer temperatures as by the date of spring snowmelt. More granular affects on specific species will emerge as research continues... and even more discoveries will follow when these data are combined with another Citizen Science program, the Cascades Butterfly Survey.

The bright sunny blue skies and warm temperatures today have me, and probably the rest of you, if you live in the Pacific Northwest, thinking about summer. (If you live in the snowy Northeast, you’re probably thinking about summer too, only more wistfully.) As such, it’s a good time to start reminding you of all the wonderful volunteer opportunities that will be coming up in just a few short months!

One of the most popular is MeadoWatch, a partnership with the University of Washington to survey wildflowers at Mount Rainier and track the dates at which they grow, bloom, and set seed. It’s a lovely excuse to get out on a mountain trail, look at beautiful scenery, and contribute to serious science! The program has been running for several years now, so you can read all about it in our past blog articles, but the best way to learn all about the program, the science behind it, and how you can help, is to visit their website here:

http://MeadoWatch.org

Dear MeadoWatchers,

Thank you all so much for your participation in MeadoWatch this year!  The calendars are closed and we are in the process of removing trail markers and placing our microclimate sensors (see this blog from Emmi). We had a wonderful summer with more than 100 volunteers hiking both Reflection Lakes and Glacier Basin trails. It was a late snow year but very warm summer, so we'll be very interested to see how this affects the phenology of our focal species.

A friendly reminder, please scan or mail any completed data sheets you might have laying around! No data is too late, so send us your 2016 data if you find that as well! Not only will this increase the strength of our data set but it will also help us keep track of participation for the Park. If you are hoping to receive volunteer credit from the Park, we are tracking this based on data sheets.

We would also love to have any photos you might have taken on your hikes that you wish to share. If you would like to volunteer them for future use in presentations or materials, please let us know.

Happy Fall and all the best,

Do you love the idea of Citizen Science? Are you a little confused about what Citizen Science programs are being offered here at Mount Rainier? Here is a quick look at the four programs classified as Citizen Science and how to get more information or get involved.

Amphibian Surveys: Volunteers with the Amphibian Survey program conduct field surveys of toads and tadpoles in park lakes, ponds, and wetland areas.  Surveys are done July-September. Previous experience is not needed and surveying equipment will be provided.

Butterfly Surveys: Volunteers with the Cascade Butterfly Project help researchers identify and count butterflies in alpine meadows. Butterflies make ideal indicator species because they are particularly sensitive to climatic changes, and are relatively easy to identify in the field by scientists and volunteers alike.

Hike With a Purpose: This program supports social science research on trail conditions and crowding in Mount Rainier National Park. Volunteers hike on 3 popular trails in the park and record the number of visitors they pass and the time they pass each visitor, spending 20-30 minutes at each destination.

MeadoWatch: MeadoWatch volunteers help researchers learn about the effects of climate change on subalpine meadows in Mount Rainier. Volunteers in this program hike trail transects intermittently throughout the summer, recording the flowers they observe growing, blooming, and setting seed at designated points along the way.