From May 24–31 citizen scientists across Jasper National Park will have their eyes to the ground, as they take part in the annual Spring Flower Count.
The aim of the count is to each year create as comprehensive a record as possible of all the plants that are flowering in the park at a specific time. To do this, volunteers head out across Jasper and diligently record all the species they can find blooming.
On the evening of May 24, Parks interpreter Brian Catto will kick things off, with a presentation priming any wannabe botanists for the count. The next morning he will lead a flower walk down the Marjorie Lake Trail, where the group will take an up-close look at some of the park’s flower species.
“Typically by that time of year I make it half a kilometre or a kilometre by the three hours that I schedule for the program, because there are so many different species. And we stop at them, we talk about them and get an opportunity to get up close and examine them,” he explained.
After that, Catto hands out flower count sheets to everyone, and over the next week they are free to hit up their favourite locations around the park and count as many species as they can.
Catto said that about 20–25 people typically show up for the Saturday evening presentation, which will take place in the Jasper Heritage Railway Station, and by the end of the week he usually ends up with about 15 sheets. Depending on conditions, the volunteer will find anywhere from 40–50 species (on cool years) to more than 100 when the weather is ideal.
Barb Zimmer, a botanist based out of Tête Jaune Cache, has taken part in the Jasper flower count for years. She explained that the count—which has been taking place in Jasper for more than 20 years now—is an incredibly useful tool to keep track of the effects of climate change on plant life.
Because the data has been consistently collected over a long period of time, it allows scientists to see how plants have bloomed differently as the climate has warmed.
“I always tell people that plants are very smart. You know, they are a lot smarter then we think they are,” Zimmer said, explaining that flowers react to even the slightest variations in sunlight.
“When you look at when a flower blooms you’re actually not looking at anything but the weather. The flower itself is initiated at the exact same time every year. So if the flowers are blooming two weeks earlier every year now, you’re looking at the weather, and it’s our way of looking at climate change,” she said.
She said the flower count is “fantastic when it comes to climate change studies,” and pointed to cases like the aspen tree, which she said are blooming two to three weeks earlier now than they were decades ago.
“These records that go back long-term are really important, so that’s our only way of marking how things are changing,” she said.
To participate in this year’s count, head to the Jasper Heritage Railway Station Saturday, May 24 at 7 p.m. for a refresher on flower identification, and join the group the following day at the Saturday Night Loop (Trail #3) for a flower walk from 9 a.m. until 12 noon on the Marjorie Lake Trail.
Trevor Nichols
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