Woody Debris

Thank you all so much for your attention and your cooperation for our Live From the Field polycom broadcast from Edgewater, Maryland. I feel extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in the program and to share the experience with you. I know you all feel the same way. I also want to thank Mr. Howard, Ms. Quiros, and Mr. Chapman for all of their support and also thanks must go out to everyone here at SERC for their help. It has been great. This will serve as my last blog from the facility, with follow ups this weekend.

As you may recall from our videoconference, I spent the morning analyzing woody debris.Nancy Khan explains our task in the video. We set out transects in our logged research plot and are identifying coarse woody debris. We find woody debris on our transects and identify, measure, and classify all pieces greater than 5cm in diameter.



I actually enjoyed the task except for all of the invassive undergrowth we had to deal with. Also, this area was cleared selectively just prior to SERC's acquisition of the property. The logging was sloppy and caused a lot of what we can call collateral dagmage. Nontarget trees were felled accidentally or for convenience; a lot of woody debris was left behind; and trees that remained were susceptible to wind topping or knockover.

How could this have been done differently? What do you envision, when you think about selective cutting in a forest? If you had an area of forest how would you manage it? If you were to log it, how would you proceed?

Finally, I would like you to work in small groups and discuss ways in which we can take our experience from this program and do something that involves not only our APES classes, but other classes as well, in making our campus more sustainable. Once you have determined a goal for a greener VPHS, discuss ways that we can involve the entire school, the community outside of VPHS, parents, businesses, the district, the city, etc. We need a sustainability project that is itself sustainable. Please be prepared thoroughly for a discussion Monday. Thank you.

A Swamp in the Forest?

Oh man this afternoon was rough! What was supposed to be a walk in the forest turned out more like trudging through wetlands. Our group was heading out to one of the research plots to finish collecting tree IDs, locations and measurements. Coincidentally, the plots we needed to gather our data from lie in a floodplain. With the recent rains our floodplain plots were infact plainly flooded :-) However, we were not to be deterred! We are teachers, and we are nothing if not flexible. So we dawned our gear and took care of business. No only am I finding occassion to use intruments I don't often use, I am also finding occassion to wear clothes I don't often use.

Here we are gathering our data. Remember, we are working in 1 hectare plots. We must be systematic, so we work in one 10m by 10m plot at a time. Working from the southwest corner of the plot, we move through first identifying species, measuring diameter at breast hight (DBH), noting any damage, determining overall health and level of dominance, and finally noting exact location within the plot.

Whew, this is a lot of work. Fortunately, I am working with colleagues who are very helpful. Working cooperatively we were able to be very productive and efficient. I dare say, it was sort of fun. What do you think? Does it sound like fun to you? Does it sound interesting? What about leaf litter analysis or removing invasive species? If you had a chance would you volunteer your time for such things? Please answer in your journals. I look forward to reading your comments.

Leaf Litter Counts

Last night and earlier this morning it was raining heavily. Luckily, the job this mornng is to sort through leaf litter that has been collected from the experimental plots. You may recall that in a previous post I described Jess Parker's experimental design in which we are analyzing both mature and immature secondary growth forest with proximity to a logged area and also away from the logged area. We can use the leaf litter to determine species richness, abundance, dominance, and spatial distribution among other things. We can combine this data along with other sets of data, such as tree measurements, which I will discuss in a later post, to gain more insight into the forest dynamics.

In order to analyze the data from the leaf litter, leaves first need to be collected. Within each experimaental plot (of which there are eight- why 8?) 5 gallon buckets are systematically placed on the ground to catch falling leaves. The leaves we were looking at this morning were collected on December 1, 2009. The leaves are then taken back to the lab where they are sorted by species. We have to identify the leaf and separate them out. We also separated fruits and seeds, as well as twigs. How do you think we identify the various leaves we collect?

Once separated, the leaves are dried and then weighed. Leaves, it turns out, along with increases in annual accumulated girth provide a good measure of productivity. For example, more leaves and more annual growth means more productivity. What do I mean by plant productivity? What are the components required for plant productivity? What might be the relationship between plant productivity in a forest and CO2 induced global climate change?

Hunting Down Invasives

Thank you all for your comments. Christine, funding for what I am doing comes from HSBC's HSBC In the Community program. Further, HSBC funds a lot of the research that goes on here along with EarthWatch Institute. Robby, we can indeed tell the age of individual trees by checking the rings of fallen trees or of stumps left by cleared trees. We can also tell by taking tree cores and analyzing them. However, in this case we know the age of the forests in this area based on historical records. Great questions.

Last night I wrote about "Jess" Parker's experiment with forest fragmentation. He is looking at the realationship between forest clearing or fragmentation or disturbances on secondary growth forests both mature and immature. There is some old growth forest here as well, though it is a relatively small area and we are not sure of its age. It seems to be a few hundred years old. It is hard to imagine a forest in this area much older than that.

Yesterday afternoon I worked with John Parker (no relation to "Jess") on a study of non-native invasive weedy plants. What is meant by non-native? Are there other names? What is meant by invassive? Do the terms the same thing? Answer in your journal, please. Also, I will explain John's experimental design and I would like you to visualize it and illustrate it in your journal. Here we are going to study the relationship of deer browsing in areas with and without non-native vegetation.

(1) One plot is left as is- with native plants to browse along with non-native

(2) One plot is cleared of non-natives so that only native browse remains

(3) One plot is left as is, but dear are excluded

(4) One plot is cleared of non-natives, but dear are excluded

How do we clear away non-natives? See for youself :-)

Climate Change: A Case Study on Interdisciplinary Problem Solving

Just to clarify some things for everybody. I am working as a citizen scientist, a volunteer, for EarthWatch Institute. My program is funded by HSBC. We are staying at the SERC campus. SERC stands for Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Finally, the group with whom we are volunteering and learning from works out of the North America Regional Climate Center. The NARCC is one of five such centers around the world- the other four being in India, China, the UK and Costa Rica. All of the regional centers are looking at climate change issues specifically with respect to forests. How the two systems are impacted by each other, is the overall focus.


Here is a brief description of the two studies I have worked on thus far. The first is looking at the effect of forests, forest disturbance and thus regeneration (succession) and forest fragmentation and the role each may play in the issue of global climate Change. I will outline the experimental design for you and would like you to illustrate, in your journals, what you think it looks like; roughly of course.


Dr. "Jess" Parker has set up eight plots. Each plot is 1 hectare (10 sqare km). We want to know the forest characteristics and the microclimates of each. The study plots include the following along with controlled set-ups for each.
(1) an undisturbed mature secondary growth forest about 120 years old.
(2) an undisturbed immature secondary growth forest about 60 years old.
(3) a recently logged mature secondary growth forest
(4) a recently logged immature secondary growth forest

Climate Change Primer

Thank you all for your comments to previous postings. Remember, I must check and approve your comments before they are posted and I cannot do that if you include last names. Please include your first name (with your last initial if you choose) and your class period. Keep your comments or questions brief, as there are many of you, and use your writing journals to expand so that we may have discussions upon my return. I will be posting twice a day. You will check my blog twice a day- at school in the mornings and at home in the evenings.

In my training today, I learned about recording data that helps monitor tree species richness, abundance and overall health of the forest ecosystem. We are trying to determine the relationship between forests and global climate change. Again, both systems- forest ecosystems and climate- are extremely complex. Therefore, we are looking at just one relatively small piece of the relatively large pie that is Sustainable Forestry in a Changing Climate.

So here are some questions to get you thinking about climate change. What are your feelings about climate change? Is it really happenning? If so how big of a deal is it? Are human activities contributing to it? Do you have evidence to support your conclusions one way or the other?

Here is an exercise that I would like you to try with the help of your classmates, friends, parents, relatives, other teachers, etc. Create a grid that contains four boxes or quadrants. Hint: think Punnett Square :-) On the "y-axis" write human-caused global warming outside (to the left of) the upper left quadrant and nonhuman-caused global warming outside the lower left quadrant. For the "x-axis," write consequences of immediate action above the upper left quadrant and consequences of delayed action above the upper right quadrant. Fill in all four quarants with appropriate responses. For example, in the upper left quadrant, you are addressing the issue of human-caused global warming with immediate action taken to prevent it. Have fun kids. Remember, post brief comments to the blog and I will check them and likely post many. Use your journals to answer my questions and prompts. Namaste.

Forests and Climate Change

By now you all realize that I am on this journey to learn more about the relationship between forests and climate and more importantly to share my experiences with you. I want to take the opportunity to remind everybody that all systems are extremely complex and when we study any system, let alone multiple systems, we must be careful to oversimplify the information or our conclusions. Scientists work to understand nature. Often times this is difficult, tedious, painstaking work. Oh well. Much of what is truly valuable in life is such.

OK. Today I took a walk in the forest; climbed a 120 foot observation/ weather monitoring/ solar flux analysis tower; and we had a safety briefing, including a tick talk:-)

For your logs: I fell asleep last night after midnight local time and woke-up just before 7:30. What time was it in Orange County? What were you doing at those times? Check the weather at my location for today. What is solar flux? What information can we learn from such monitoring? What are ticks? Extra credit for taxonomic classification. What disease are we concerned about with ticks? Symptoms? Finally, what are the differences between old growth forests, secondary growth mature forests and secondary growth immature forests with respect to species diversity, species abundance, forest canopy, understory, etc?