Greenstone 2019
National Park Service Your Guide to Isle Royale National Park U.S. Department of the Interior www.nps.gov/isro Storied Science On an early July morning in 1905, a team of six University of Michigan scientists and a “camp hand” disembarked at the abandoned Rock Harbor Lighthouse and began setting up the camp that would be their base of operations for the next month. Led by Dr. Charles Adams, the research team consisted of experts in everything from birds to mollusks to beetles. At the time, ecology was practically a brand-new science, and Adams, one of its founders and strongest proponents. His project and final report, An Ecological Survey of Isle Royale, became a model for how to collect and analyze field data. Among their many observations, expedition members noted unusually colored garter snakes, riotous life in shoreline pools, and arctic species of dragonflies. These and other features generated a surge of research in the coming decades. In 1929 and 1930, separate teams of botanists, zoologists, geologists, geographers, and archeologists crisscrossed the island. Park advocate Albert Stoll publicized the expeditions' stories in the Detroit News. His tantalizing headlines (Thirteen thrilling minutes in a storm cloud!) fueled public interest in this mysterious northern isle, paving the way for national park status. The park's scientific legacy continues. Each season, dozens of university researchers explore questions from diverse scientific fields, and National Park Service-led monitoring projects deepen understanding of park ecosystems. A hundred years have come and gone since Adams’ crew explored the archipelago’s shorelines and forests, its high ridges and “impenetrable swamps.” Today, the allure of the island remains, and research stories of Isle Royale continue to unfold.
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