All this ‘death from above’ makes walking in the forest tough – so use the tree super highway…

One striking aspect of forests with large trees is just how important (and impressive) large tree falls are for seedling regeneration as well as opening up opportunities for young seedling recruits. Here is a must read recent chapter on the topic by Schnitzer, Mascaro, and Carson. However, I would add that the downside of all of this ‘death raining from above’ is that big tree falls make walking and working in the forest rather difficult (see our earlier lab posts from BCI). One saying that seems to have codified in our Macrosystems sites is that ‘if the going gets tough then use the tree super highway’. Downed large tree trunks make perfect and ‘stright shot’ walking routes throughout the forest. In the old growth at HJ Andrews one can essentially walk through a forest jumping from downed big tree to downed big tree . . .

Here is the lab communiting on one such big tree super highway and shaving much needed time between Gentry plots.

Here is Sean Michaletz – a new lab post-doc fresh from Canada is discovering that a transect under one of the numerous downed big Oregonian trees can make a Gentry transect rather awkward.

Learning the ways of the Gentraso . . .

Irena Simova will be a new joint lab post-doc with the Macrosystems project. Here she is learning the ways of the Gentraso 0.1ha sampling.

The field crew at the end of a hot and sweaty day in the forest.

Extending the elevation gradient. Peak season ecosystem carbon fluxes at our new high elevation site . . .

I’m still getting caught up in some lab summer posts so please excuse some gaps in posting. This summer we extended our lab elevational gradient this summer to include a higher elevation flux site up on the base on Cinnamon Mtn. above Gothic and Crested Butte. We are excited to extend our monitoring and studies to within the alpine. Usually there should be much more snow up here at this time of year.  Here Amanda, Colby, and field crew are manipulating a tent to measure NEE (net ecosystem exchange) across several replicated field plots at this site. 

ESA exhaustion and reports . . .

This was the biggest ESA meeting ever. It certainly seemed like it. Lots of interesting and diverse talks – actually too many. Over at EEB & Flow they have blogged about many of the community ecology, trait, and phylogenetic talks. Christine Lamanna’s talk (which was excellent) was highlighted.  You can read more by clicking here

Sixth Macrosystems site is underway

Forest, tree, and trait measures are underway at HJAndrews forest in Oregon. . . . . Big trees, macroecolgy, and cool breezes.

Tropical elevational gradients featured in Science

There is a nice news story in the latest issue of Science on the importance of long-term monitoring of tropical trees and elevational gradients. The piece features the Madidi Project spearheaded by one of our lab collaborators Peter Jørgensen from the Missouri Botanical Garden. The importance of The lab is featured with a few quotes from myself and Brad Boyle.

Here is the link to the story and for a pdf version of the story click here (Madidi_Science_2012.full).

Watch the Enquist lab in action on the National Geographic Channel

Looks like the entire production of the National Geographic X-Ray earth show is available on YouTube now.  Click here to watch it. You can watch the Enquist lab in the field as well as a good overview of the scaling work starting about at 50 minutes into the show. Our segment lasts until 1:04 – keep watching to see my collaborator Geoffrey West talk about his new city scaling work – which is really cool!

Installing weather stations . . .but where is the snow?

Two weather stations installed today. The crew has been hard at work installing portable weather stations along our elevational gradient at RMBL in Colorado. These stations will enable us to quantify differences between our study sites across the gradient as well as across years. Last year so so wet but this year is a dramatically dry year so far – shockingly so and is certainly the driest start to the growing season in recent memory. While climbing the tripod is not as rewarding as a canopy tower  – the view certainly is.

Standardize your botanical names now via a much improved TNRS!

We have just released the latest version of the Taxonomic Name Resolution Service! Verision 3.0 is available by clicking here

http://news.iplantcollaborative.org/2012/05/taxonomic-name-resolution-service-tnrs.html

‘Costa Rica ha perdido su energía por la conservación’

Prophetic and tough words from the Tropical Biologist Dan Janzen in an interview in the Costa Rican newspaper La Nacion, which you can read here. Dan is my hero and has influenced many of us in the lab in more ways than I think we even know. This is a provocotive challage to the new generation. I think this piece will go down as one of Janzen’s better series of quotes.

In particular, this one statement caught my eye. When asked about the spanish word “bioalfabetizadas” (click here to learn more) or ‘ bio literacy’ he responds…

Puesto de otra forma, eliminar la naturaleza de la vida de uno es lo mismo que encapsularse en un infierno rodeado por puros artefactos de la humanidad que, aunque tienen mucho valor, son solamente una pequeña porción de lo que el humano es capaz de apreciar. ”Usted sin la naturaleza es como no tener ojos que le permiten apreciar los colores o sin el oído que le hace percibir la música. Sin naturaleza es perder la capacidad de saborear y olfatear, es estar sin las interacciones diarias, que son mucho más complejas de lo que puede confeccionar el humano”.