Proceedings of the Acadia National Park Science Symposium, October 23, 2012

Miller-Rushing, Abraham

From the summary: "The 2012 Acadia National Park Science Symposium, held at the Schoodic Education and Research Center (SERC), brought together over 100 researchers, students, and park staff to discuss science taking place in and beyond the park boundaries. The symposium featured 3 invited talks and 46 posters describing results and plans for research in a range of disciplines, including natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. The goals for the symposium were to facilitate communication and collaboration among scientists, students, park staff, and others working in a range of fields and to solicit input into the development of science priorities for SERC. Discussions at the symposium were dynamic and highlighted many challenges facing resource managers and scientists, including the need to support long-term research, manage data effectively, adapt management practices and research techniques to a rapidly changing environment, and connect research with management actions. These discussions were in addition to the abundance of research presented on specific natural and cultural resource topics. Many undergraduate and graduate students were present, which contributed a multi-generational aspect to the dialogue throughout the symposium. SERC is in the midst of a strategic planning process and is identifying how it can best serve the scientific community and achieve its vision to support science and education to support communities and conservation. Symposium attendees contributed ideas for how SERC can best support science through three methods: (1) oral comments during a plenary discussion, (2) written comments on a poster board available during the poster sessions, and (3) responses to a researcher survey. The most frequent recommendations included providing an online map of monitoring and research sites in the region, continuing to hold the annual science symposium, improving access to online data and information resources, and providing small grants to researchers. These and the rest of the recommendations will contribute substantially to SERC’s strategic planning process. We plan to continue this symposium on an annual basis. The 2013 symposium will probably be themed around climate change adaptation, which we hope will facilitate even more substantial and productive discussions and new collaborations."