June 27, 2010 Back to the forest
Arctic lichen and forest
Today was an example of how the weather can change very rapidly. This morning the sun was brightly shining and it looked like it was going to be another beautiful day. By noon the sun had totally disappeared and the wind had picked up a bit. By mid-afternoon it was sooo cold and windly even the mosquitos had ducked for cover! The low tonight is expected to be almost freezing…so much for stable arctic weather!
Lichen covers most of the ground here except for the gravel and boulders. In some places it is almost a foot thick, and it feels like walking on a trampoline. Today we had to walk on thick lichen for about 1/2 mile each way, which was tricky indeed!
We found 13 seedlings!
At each site each group of three of us pick a random quadrant of 1 meter by 2 meters, and search for spruce seedlings. searching for these seedlings can be quite tedious since they are usually only less than one inch tall and grow in the fluffy lichen. for each seedling we find we record about a dozen data entries. In the plot above, we found 13 seedlings…13 x 12 = … a lot of data entries!
Searching
- 6 comments
- Posted under Journal
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David Kuroda
said
I was given the link to your blog by Cynthia and Charlene. Excellent idea and WordPress is an impressive program. You’re doing important work up there. You’re seeing the effects of the warming of our earth first hand. Real science using very traditional methods: counting seedlings in quadrants. How do you select the “random” quandrants? (This would be my questions as a student).
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Mr. T
said
Hi David – It is truly random. For each quadrant one of us is randomly selected to randomly throw over his or her shoulder a metal peg. Wherever it lands starts one of the four corners of the 1 meter by 2 meter quadrant. Then a group of three of us gets on our hands and knees and begins searching for spruce seedlings, which are about 1-3 cm tall.
This may not seem very tall but since there is only 4-6 weeks in the growing season each year, a 5 cm tall seedlings may already ten years old! We have seen 100 years old trees that are only 5 meters tall! BTW 1m = approx 3 ft
So far we have measured specimens in almost 20 different environmental sites,each with over a dozen quadrants..lots of research-work!
Thanks for visitng my site and commenting!
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Courtney Sam
said
wow, i didn’t expect the arctic to have so many plants. what data do you record from the spruce seedlings?
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Mr. T
said
Hi Courtney – I have learned more about trees and tree measurements than ever before. Our leader, Pete, knows more about plants, animals, geology, climate, and the arctic than I thought was even possible!
For each seedling we find (less than 15 cm) we record 1) overall height, 2) length of the apex (topmost lead stem), 3) number of whorls (indication of tree age), 4) number of main branches (indicates tree health), 5) number of buds (indicates tree future), and a lots of other data for a totla of about a dozen recordings per tree!
We also take GPS coordinates for each tree so it can be found again for future observations. We also take a picture of the tree with the date, location and height info.
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Leilei Shao
said
Sounds…interesting. Hope you and your team are discovering new and cool things everyday!
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Mr. T
said
Hi Leilei – I hope your summer is off to a great start!
My team and I are discovering new things everyday…well, it is new to us, at least!