Jordan Reding's Graduate Exit Seminar
Jordan Reding will present his Graduate Exit Seminar, Rock Climbing or Lichen Climbing? How Rock Climbing Impacts Moss and Lichen Communities Within The Red River Gorge, Kentucky on Monday, June 10th at 10AM in Kottman 245.
Overview:
Rock climbing is an extremely popular activity within the Red River Gorge, but little research has been done on how it impacts rock-surface lichen and moss communities. Abundance, species richness, and diversity was estimated and compared across climbed and unclimbed areas to describe climbing impacts. Factors including slope, aspect, microtopographic variation, and frequency of climbing activity were also taken into consideration. In addition to this, I compared common and novel methods to estimate lichen and moss abundance. These methods included using in-situ visual estimation, photography to estimate abundance in the lab setting, a computer platform to classify photographic images, and chlorophyll florescence.