Crevice Community Studies by Keene High School Students

Keene High School's AP Environmental
Science Class with Antioch students and
professors from MERE on the top of
Monadnock. September 2008.

GOAL: To work with Keene High School Students in setting up long term plots where we can monitor the crevice communities on Monadnock in order to determine human impacts on the mountain.

What are Crevice Communities? Why should we study them?

Crevice communities are the small pockets of vegetation that thrive on rocky terrain on the top of Monadnock. These communities are specifically adapted to the extreme habitat of the mountain, and have gone through many years of succession in order to reach their current level of biodiversity. These pockets of life are often small, and therefore very susceptible to human disturbances, including trampling and climate change. It is important to monitor these communities so we can assess how humans have an impact on the mountain. MERE hopes to monitor these communities for many years in the future, to observe how they are altered by the changing climate and other human impacts.

Top of Monadnock, September 2008

Working with Keene High School's AP Environmental Studies Class

The Educational Goals of MERE include getting the community involved in studying Monadnock. That's why MERE is collaborating with the AP Environmental Studies (APES) students at Keene High. By working with APES students, we are able to establish permanent plots that the students will be able to return to year after year to monitor and document changes in the communities. Working with these students on this project will assist them in learning research and sampling methods, while also gaining the ability to accurately monitor the crevice communities of Monadnock.

Completed Crevice Community Research

So far, we have made our pioneer trip up the mountain with the APES students. In September of 2008, Peter Palmiotto of Antioch University New England, four Antioch graduate students, two Keene High Teachers, and over two full classes of students climbed Monadnock with the goal of testing their sampling methods. Prior to the trip, the students had worked with MERE graduate students and their teacher, Marshall Davenson, to create a plan on how to measure and monitor the crevice communities. The goal of this trip was not to establish permanent plots, but to test their sampling methods and get a feel for the experiment. Although the students were faced with many tough challenges, they were able to leave the mountain that day knowing some of the challenges of conducting field research and ideas on how to improve their methods in order to set up permanent plots in the future.

Future Crevice Community Research

This spring, we plan on returning with the APES students in order to set up our permanent plots. We also hope to 'rope off' some heavily trampled areas to document their recovery, which will be used as an educational tool on the mountain for the community. This spring we will collect initial data on these plots, which we will be able to analyze in the years to come. This year's APES class has a truly unique experience, in that they are setting up this project for future students to follow for many years. We hope that the data collection we do this year will be the beginning years to come.

Antioch Professor Peter Palmiotto
instructing APES students on sampling
procedures

APES students taking measurements of
crevice communities on top of Monadnock

Last Updated: 7/23/09