5,000th New Discovery
Great Smoky Mountains National
Park
All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI)
- A new plant record for the Park marks the 5,000th discovery for the ATBI that has been counting and documenting
the life forms of the Park since 1998.
- The velvet leaf blueberry (Vaccinium myrtilloides)
was identified on May 20, 2006 during an ATBI Field Day at the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center at Purchase Knob in North
Carolina.
- The thigh-high shrub is mostly a northern species. It is found in sunny sites from the Atlantic to the Pacific in Canada. Its southern-most
known location was western Virginia ... until the Field Day.
- Plants and animals that have populations at the edge of their range, like this blueberry, are of special interest.
- Often they are genetically differentiated from related species since they have probably been isolated from other populations of their
species for thousands of years.
- Survival through time here has been dictated by environmental factors different from, say, central Canada.
- Sometimes these peripheral populations have developed genetic traits that become
important for the future perpetuation of the species.
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Velvet Leaf Blueberry
(Vaccinium myrtilloides)
Click photo to enlarge.
Photo by Heather MacCulloch.
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- The velvet leaf blueberry is thought to have a very small population in the Park—the
status of which will now be evaluated by Park biologists.
- Several factors operating at the park's higher elevations (where this shrub was found),
such as potential air quality issues with ozone pollution and acid deposition,
as well as possible competition from exotic plants, will be assessed.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Text:
Jeanie Hilten, Keith Langdon, 2006.
Photographs:
Heather MacCulloch.
Web page:
Charles Wilder
REFERENCES
Nichols, Becky. 2007. Personal communication, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
