Annotated Bibliography: Katahdin, Maine

Daniel Weitz
Instructor Stephen Lew
Bio 1B Lab Section 315
Annotated Bibliography Alpine Fellfield
Resource 1: Literature Review

Dibble AC, Miller NG, Hinds JW and Fryday AM. 2009. Lichens and bryophytes of the alpine and subalpine zones of Katahdin, Maine, I: Overview, ecology, climate and conservation aspects. The Bryologist 112(4): 651-672.

A vast region of Katahdin Peak, Maine has been explored to analyze the different lichens and bryophytes uniquely found in this ecosystem. This literature review reflects on the history of the botanical exploration of Katahdin Peak in Maine and highlights a Kennedy expedition that collected both bryophytes and discovered the first liverworts from Katahdin Peak. From all these expeditions, the authors

Although this hypothesis is widely accepted by the scientific community, James B. Benedict wanted to determine whether wind could be the potential cause of charcoal in the alpine fellfield ecosystem. In order to do this, he analyzed fifty-six soil samples collected from shallow depths in the Front Range of Colorado. He compared these samples to other samples collected in the alpine fellfield region, which is at a higher elevation. The results of analyzing shallow soil cores from fifty six regions revealed that the charred particles were discovered to be bigger and more numerous in the subalpine forest with a sharp decrease directly above the tree line that marks the start of the alpine fellfield ecosystem but no further decreases. The presence of large charcoal particles, which are the result of local fires, in Front Range tundra suggests that windblown forest fire charcoal can contaminate AMS radiocarbon samples from high elevation archaeological sites. This paper interestingly examines the differences between charcoal levels at different elevations and evaluates the different effects that winds have at these elevations. This paper focused on abiotic factors such as altitude, wind, and temperature in the alpine fellfield

Perennials are plants that usually live longer than two years. The hypothesis being tested was whether or not perennial life forms can be treated as plant functional groups. The method to determine this was by taking a series of quadrant samples on the White Mountains in Northern California to uncover common species. Eight species were selected for the study to compare ecophysiological differences and maximum photosynthetic capacity between these eight species. Although these species chosen were supposed to illustrate four different ecological life forms and also portray putative plant functional groups, the results depicted no definitive patterns of difference between categories of life forms in the alpine fellfield community. This led Rundel to conclude that life forms in this habitat do not represent plant functional groups since distinct connections linking plant life form and functional attributes of the eight fellfield species was not present in the data. One interesting finding of this paper was that soil moisture was not always found to be the limiting growing factor for the different species. This paper is very relevant for understanding the ecosystem because it closely studies the different plant species found in alpine fellfield ecosystem. The data also covers abiotic factors such as climate and water availability to species in