Project Overview

The Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Cooperative (FEMC) collaborated with Dr. Colin Beier (SUNY-ESF) and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to expand on the work by Rockefeller (2016) and Larkin (2017) to examine the risk of invasive plant propagule transport by visitors to trailheads in the Adirondack Park, NY. The Adirondack Park contains over 300 trailheads, each usually has a parking area for visitors and a trail register for each party to record their location of origin. As visitors may travel from areas outside the Park, there is a risk that visitors could unwillingly transport invasive plants on boot treads, dog fur, or clothing that could become established in the Park. While this work only includes visitor data from 2012, it provides valuable information on the possible travel routes, hotspots, and vulnerabilities in invasive plant management in the park. Additionally, summary information on visitor use and travel distances can help with resource allocation and planning.

Objectives

This project was designed as a case study to explore the utility of using digitized trail registry data to answer ecological questions.

Dataset Availability

Downloadable: 5 datasets

See the full list of available data

Tags

Status - Completed

Start date: 2019-08-01

End date: 2020-01-31

Study Area

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