Diario del proyecto The Whitebark Pine Project

Hello Whitebark Pine Project Members!

Summer is on the horizon which means it's time to start gearing up for another season of observing whitebark pine! There are many tools available (see below) on the Elfinwood Ecology webpage that may be helpful when making observations this summer.

To get you stoked for the upcoming observation season here's a 3-minute video I made last summer that's posted to YouTube: The Whitebark Pine Project Video***

Tools for Observing Whitebark Pine
The Whitebark Pine Project project page includes best practices for documenting whitebark pine observations for iNaturalist, includinng representative photos of whitebark pine.

There is an Identification guide to the 5-needle pines of western North America which includes a location-based guide and dichotomous keys to aid in the identification of 5-needle pines.

And there is also a page with Five Needle Pine Species Descriptions including photos of the 5-needle pines of western North America.

Related Project
Don't forget to check out the related project 5-Needle Pines Along the Pacific Crest Trail

Please tell your friends about these projects and ask them to join on iNaturalist if they are interested.

Best Regards,
Aaron Wells

***All filming was conducted on non-wilderness lands of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest by a licensed drone operator. In order to protect wildlife, the opportunity for solitude and quiet places, the drone footage in this video was gathered after researching local regulations and ensuring as best as possible that the drone did not cause disturbance. This footage was intentionally gathered in support of nature conservation by a licensed operator outside of designated Wilderness and outside of National Parks.

Hello Whitebark Pine Enthusiasts!

We're well into the summer observation season and I'm excited to see so many whitebark pine observations rolling in! I recently wrapped up the field work for a whitebark pine citizen-science monitoring pilot study in the North Cascades that was funded by a small grant from the Washington Native Plant Society. You can read more about the pilot study here: https://elfinwoodecology.org/five-needle-pine-citizen-science-monitoring-project/

I also just finished up a short video on 5-needle pines that you can watch at the following link:
https://youtu.be/UOfe8m5OsYg

The video is a collaboration between myself and Brandon Pasley, owner of Methow Photography.

Happy Observing!

Aaron

Hi all! Another week, another journal post! This week I wanted to mention two new pages on the The Whitebark Pine Project website with some tools to assist with 5-needle pine identification.

The first is an identification guide to 5-Needle Pine of western North America, including a location based key. The guide is geared towards non-scientists but should be useful for everyone.

The guide is here: Identification guide to 5-Needle Pine of western North America

The second webpage includes species descriptions of 5-needle pines, including detailed photos.

The descriptions are here: Five Needle Pine Species Descriptions

I hope you all have a great week!

Aaron Wells

Hi all! As a proof-of-concept, I conducted a quick pilot study using iNaturalist data from this project and herbarium records to map whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) outside the published range across Canada and the United States. You can read about it here:

Mapping Whitebark Pine using Citizen Science Data

Hi all, thanks to everyone who has contributed observations and IDs to The Whitebark Pine Project thus far in 2022!

Since January 1, 2022 there have been 2,377 research grade observations of 64 species from 1,108 observers. Of this total, 241 observations were of whitebark pine spanning a broad geographic range from as far north as Mount Robson Provincial Park, BC to the John Muir Wilderness, CA in the south. East to west the 2022 whitebark pine observations range from the Gros Ventre Range in Wyoming, to Boulder Peak in the Klamath National Forest in northern California.

As summer draws to a close, and fall is in the air, there's still time to make observations! Also, if you have time to review observations and make identifications that would extremely helpful to increase the number of research grade observations. In addition to this project, please also consider reviewing observations in the related Whitebark Pine Outside Published Range project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/whitebark-pine-outside-published-range

Lastly, please tell a friend about this project so we can increase the number of people involved.

Thanks and have a wonderful fall season!

Best Regards,
Aaron Wells

Hi all, Summer is here and whitebark pine habitat is becoming snow-free more and more each day! Time to get out and make some observations of whitebark pine! Your observations of whitebark pine and the species associated with its ecological story are very important for future conservation efforts.

I've updated my web page with best practices for observations. Check it out here: https://elfinwoodecology.org/the-whitebark-pine-project/

Have a great summer! I look forward to seeing your observations in iNaturalist!