Natural Resource Monitoring at Acadia National Park

Acadia's Witch Hole Pond

Brent Danley

Overview

Founded in 1916, Acadia National Park has a rich human history that includes Native Americans, European settlers, artists, conservationists, and more.

The park protects 40 miles of rocky shoreline and contains over 47,000 acres of rugged, primarily island topography carved and shaped by a succession of continental glaciers. With its bare, rounded mountain summits, verdant forests, sea cliffs, boulder beaches, deeply indented coastline, carriage trails, pristine ponds and lakes, headlands jutting into the sea, and remote islands, the park captures the extraordinary beauty and charm of the Maine coast.

Acadia is positioned within the broad transition zone between eastern deciduous and northern coniferous forests, and hosts several species and plant communities at the edge of their geographic range. Steep slopes rise above the rocky shore, including Cadillac Mountain, which at 1,530 feet is the highest point on the U.S. Atlantic coast. While surrounded by the ocean, the entire fabric of Acadia is interwoven with a wide variety of freshwater, estuarine, forest, geologic, and intertidal resources, many of which contain plant and animal species of international, national and state significance.

Lakes and ponds cover about 2,600 acres of the park. Of these, 14 are 'Great Ponds' (natural bodies of water greater than 10 acres). In addition, over 20% of Acadia National Park includes wetlands of all types (marine aquatic beds, intertidal shellfish flats, salt marshes, freshwater marshes, forested wetlands, and peatlands).

Long Term Monitoring Programs in the Park

Click links below to learn more

Air Quality	Invasive Species Early Detection
Breeding Landbirds	Phenology
Climate	Rocky Intertidal Communities
Forest Health	Water Quality
Freshwater Wetland

Air Quality Reports

Source: Data Store Saved Search 1187 (results presented are a subset). To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.

Breeding Landbirds Reports

Source: Data Store Saved Search 2272 (results presented are a subset). To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.

Forest Health Monitoring Reports

Source: Data Store Saved Search 1189 (results presented are a subset). To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.

Freshwater Wetland Reports

Source: Data Store Saved Search 2483 (results presented are a subset). To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.

Invasive Species Reports

Source: Data Store Saved Search 1458 (results presented are a subset). To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.

Rocky Intertidal Briefs

Source: Data Store Saved Search 2285 (results presented are a subset). To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.

Water Quaity Reports

Source: Data Store Saved Search 1122 (results presented are a subset). To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.

Park Basline Inventories

The Inventory and Monitoring Program provides guidance, funding, and technical assistance for parks to complete a set of 12 baseline, or "basic", natural resource inventories. These basic inventories are common to all parks with significant natural resources, and are intended to provide park managers with the minimum information needed to effectively manage the natural resources of their park.

Baseline Inventories	Complete for Park?	Reports, Documents & Data
Water Quality	Y	Baseline Inventory
Base Cartography	Y	Cartographic data sets: U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Department of Agriculture. National Park Service data clearinghouse for mapping information and geospatial resources.
Air Quality Related Values	Y	Park Air Profiles - Acadia National Park
Climate Inventory	Y	Weather and Climate Inventory for NETN parks
Geological Resources Inventory	Y	NPS Geodiversity Atlas—Acadia National Park
Soil Resources Inventory	Y	NPS - SRI - Soil Survey Geographic (SSURGO)
Water Body Location and Classification	Y	National Hydrography Dataset
Vegetation Inventory	Y	Vegetation Inventory and Map
Species Lists	Y	IRMA Species Search
Species Occurrence and Distribution	Y	Biological Resources Search on IRMA

Park Species Lists

Species lists are available from NPSpecies, the National Park Service's tool for documenting park biodiversity. Keep in mind that these species lists are a work-in-progress. Changes and updates are made as more species are shepherded through a rigorous vetting process. The absence of a species from a list produced with the tool below doesn't necessarily mean the species is absent from a park.

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Species Attribute Definitions

Definitions

Occurrence

Occurrence values are defined below. One or more Occurrence Tags may be associated with each Occurrence value.

Present: Species occurs in park; current, reliable evidence available.

Probably Present: High confidence species occurs in park but current, verified evidence needed.

Unconfirmed: Species is attributed to park but evidence is weak or absent.

Not In Park: Species is not known to occur in park.

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Occurrence Tags

Adjacent: Species is known to occur in areas near to or contiguous with park boundaries.

False Report: Species was reported to occur within the park, but current evidence indicates the report was based on misidentification, a taxonomic concept no longer accepted, or other similar problem of error or interpretation.

Historical: Species' historical occurrence in park is documented. Assigned based on judgment as opposed to determination based on age of the most recent evidence.

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Abundance

Abundant:

• Animals: May be seen daily, in suitable habitat and season, and counted in relatively large numbers.
• Plants: Large number of individuals; wide ecological amplitude or occurring in habitats covering a large portion of the park.

Common:

• Animals: May be seen daily, in suitable habitat and season, but not in large numbers.
• Plants: Large numbers of individuals predictably occurring in commonly encountered habitats but not those covering a large portion of the park.

Uncommon:

• Animals: Likely to be seen monthly in appropriate habitat and season. May be locally common.
• Plants: Few to moderate numbers of individuals; occurring either sporadically in commonly encountered habitats or in uncommon habitats.

Rare:

• Animals: Present, but usually seen only a few times each year.
• Plants: Few individuals, usually restricted to small areas of rare habitat.

Occasional:

• Animals: Occurs in the park at least once every few years, varying in numbers, but not necessarily every year.
• Plants: Abundance variable from year to year (e.g., desert plants).

Unknown: Abundance unknown

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Nativeness

Native: Species naturally occurs in park or region.

Non-native: Species occurs on park lands as a result of deliberate or accidental human activities.

Unknown: Nativeness status is unknown or ambiguous.

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List Differences

The Checklist contains only those species that are designated as "present" or "probably present" in the park.

The Full List includes all the checklist species in addition to species that are unconfirmed, historically detected, or incorrectly reported as being found in the park. The full list also contains species that are "in review" because their status in the park hasn't been fully determined. Additional details about the status of each species is included in the full list.

The checklist will almost always contain fewer species than the full list.

Select a Park:

Acadia National Park

Select a Species Category (optional):

All Amphibians Birds Fish Mammals Reptiles Vascular Plants

Get Checklist Get Full List List Differences

Species attribute definitions

Search results will be displayed here.

Visit NPSpecies for more comprehensive information and advanced search capability. Have a suggestion or comment on this list? Let us know.

Natural Resource Briefs for Acadia National Park

Click link below to view all the short briefs about the long-term monitoring and natural resouces of the park.

Park Resource Briefs

Source: Data Store Saved Search 3746. To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.

Download a bird checklist for the park

Non NPS Citizen Science Opportunities in the Park

Bird observations from eBird

Acadia National Park has been set up in eBird as a birding "hotspot". Help the park bolster bird data by adding your bird obsevations to eBird when you visit the park.

Download and print off a Bird Checklist for the park. The bird list was created using data from the volunteer run NETN Breeding Landbird Monitoring program, eBird observations, and NPSpecies information

Species observations from iNaturalist

Learn how you can contribute to iNaturalist

View Acadia National Park data on iNaturalist website