Deboullie Climate Change Study
By The University Of Maine At Fort Kent
UMFK Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences
and Environmental Studies Dr. Peter Nelson,
began a climate-monitoring lichen “treasure hunt”
at Deboullie Mountain to assess climate change’s
impact on “rare and threatened” vegetation
communities in rock glaciers.
much higher elevation, so we have these mini
mountaintops growing on boulder fields and we’re
wondering why are they there.”
The scientists will use data logging equipment to
monitor the environmental conditions of the rock
glaciers. The data loggers are small devices, about
Dr. Nelson, along with Drs. Judith Roe and Larry the size of a nickel, and plug into a computer to
Feinstein from the University of Maine at Presque display data.
Isle, coordinated the study, which has scientists
examining plant life beneath and surrounding five “We’re going to measure the humidity and
rock glaciers at Deboullie. Dr. Roe wrote the grant temperature through time, up and down these rock
proposal for the study.
glaciers and between rock glaciers, to see whether
those environmental variables are different between
According to the proposal, the study has the and within rock glaciers. If there is a variation in
potential to yield useful results: “In order to better a single rock glacier, does the vegetation change in
inform land management and understand the a way related to that cold/wet or hot/dry gradient?
impact of climate change on the rare and threatened The reasons that lichens and mosses are good at
rock glacier plant and lichen communities, we measuring these things is they don’t have roots.
propose to conduct a comprehensive survey They are like sponges. They hydrate, and when
of the plant and lichen species and the abiotic it gets dry they dry out, so they’re just subject to
environmental conditions found on the five the whimsy of the local environment,” Dr. Nelson
Debouille rock glaciers.”
said.
“We’re not studying the rocks or the geomorphology,
per se. That’s been done,” Nelson said. “These
places are much more similar to arctic and alpine
environments.”
“I like lichens because they are diverse. There are
many species - over 12,000 in the world... There
are thousands of chemical compounds (that
comprise lichens) found nowhere else in nature.
We really don’t understand the full capacity of
He explained that plant life near the Deboullie those compounds,” he added.
rock glaciers is uncommon to most low lying
environments in Maine. “So there are these
unique little islands of arctic and boreal plants,
and there aren’t other places like this except the
few mountaintops in Maine - Katahdin and
Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. Those are
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