{"id":1666,"date":"2016-07-07T14:22:47","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T18:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal\/?p=1666"},"modified":"2016-07-07T14:22:47","modified_gmt":"2016-07-07T18:22:47","slug":"do-these-buttress-roots-make-my-trunk-look-big","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal-sandbox\/2016\/07\/07\/do-these-buttress-roots-make-my-trunk-look-big\/","title":{"rendered":"Do These Buttress Roots Make My Trunk Look Big?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Post by Kim Browne\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The past four summers I\u2019ve had the good fortune of leading students to Australia for an intensive field experience which includes visits to two World Heritage sites: the Wet Tropics of North Queensland<\/a> and the Great Barrier Reef<\/a>. These sites are connected (literally and littorally<\/a>) by the rain that falls along the narrow strip of forests along the mountainous coast, by the sugarcane fields the rivers pass through on their way to the sea, by the mangroves which filter nutrients and sediment, and by a thousand other processes that are critical to the health of these important ecosystems.<\/p>\n

But today, the main connection I want to write about is the one I felt to my study abroad as an undergraduate at James Madison University in the summer of 1987. During this intensive field biology course in the Ecuadorian rainforest and the Galapagos Islands (think Darwin) we saw buttress roots<\/a>, crossed altitudinal gradients, and witnessed things few people ever witness. How many people get to swim with sea lions in the Galapagos? Witness blue-footed booby\u2019s feeding their young? Watch an anaconda slide off a log into the river?<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>

My friend Emily in the Ecuadorian Amazon next to\u00a0a tree with large buttress roots<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019m very fortunate to have had those experiences and my students are equally fortunate. Many of the Islands I visited in the Galapagos nearly 30 years ago are now closed to visitors (due to damage and pests). Lonesome George, a giant tortoise we saw at the Charles Darwin Research Stations died in 2012. \u00a0The Amazon is in trouble.<\/p>\n

I wonder and worry about the Reef. I wonder if in 30 years my students will be reminiscing about that thing of the past called the Great Barrier Reef.\u00a0 Snorkeling this year (after unprecedented coral bleaching<\/a>)\u00a0was striking and saddening compared to my experience just one year ago. The reef is in trouble. The destruction of these large rainforest trees (aka carbon storage tanks), combined with other factors (including carbon emissions from our flights), is putting the reef in serious danger.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve since returned to my lab where four high school students are being mentored by two of my lab interns. The students are contributing to an inventory of trees on campus. They are recording the GPS coordinates, diameter, height, and species of trees. Using this information they will estimate biomass and carbon stored. The data collected will help us better understand the role of trees in our world and will help the students connect the trees they see every single day to things like the Great Barrier Reef and Global Climate Change.<\/p>\n

\"Giant<\/a>

Elaborate root structures in the Paluma Rainforest<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Post by Kim Browne\u00a0 The past four summers I\u2019ve had the good fortune of leading students to Australia for an intensive field experience which includes visits to two World Heritage sites: the Wet Tropics of North Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef. These sites are connected (literally and littorally) by the rain that falls along … <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4955,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5830,5840,24531],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-directors-desk","category-sal","category-student-experiences","item-wrap"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Tv8N-qS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal-sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal-sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal-sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal-sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4955"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal-sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal-sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal-sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal-sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal-sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}