Studying trees from top down

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, memoirs, forestry, canopy research, eighth continent, environmentalism, ecotourism

Behold Canopy Meg, Dr. Meg Lowman, called "Your Highness" by friends, a pioneer in forest canopy research, doing what she loves best.

In The Arbornaut: A Life Discovering the Eighth Continent in the Trees Above Us, Dr. Lowman describes her life, beginning as a shy, nature-loving girl, to become a pioneer in forest canopy research. She describes the twists and turns of beginning a scientific career when women were actively discouraged from doing so. A big turn was when she decided she needed to get into the treetops to study how the leaves differ between those near ground level, and farther up. They differ a lot!

In Australia, with the help of friends who are cavers, who use ropes and ascending equipment, using a slingshot she welded from some metal rods (It is illegal to buy power slingshots in Australia), she shot a line over a branch 75 feet up a coachwood tree, and learned to climb.

It didn't take long to learn that leaves in the upper part of a tree are different from those lower down. At ground level, where all earlier research had been done, it is darker and more humid, and the air is still. At the crown, the sun is relentless, the air is dryer or even arid, and the wind is almost constant and sometimes quite strong. Thus, the leaves lower down are larger, greener, and softer; the higher you go, the smaller, yellower, and tougher they are.

There are so many aspects to Canopy Meg's life and career that it is hard to remember more than a few. In spite of the bias against women in science and the roadblocks and the "glass canopy" even in tree research, she persisted—quietly and shyly, as is her wont—and is finally recognized as the pioneer she really is. But not without numerous scars from the "glass" she had to break through. She left a few prestigious positions, after having built viable educational and scientific organizations, when a board of directors changed course and hired a supervising manager, who made it his (always, his) first order of business to "put her in her place."

Earlier in her career she focused as much on the technology as on the science, developing or co-developing the techniques of bringing people to the treetops safely and with some measure of comfort. While she has rope-climbed Eucalypts upwards of 200 feet, a sweaty task you may be sure, some of her students who study Redwoods have been faced with climbing nearly 400 feet. That's a lot of rope work, and a heck of a daily commute! Enter the tree crane, for those scientific programs with sufficient funding (a million dollars or so for equipment, and thousands per day to pay the crew), and the canopy balloon (maybe less costly, a little). The crane shown is in use in Papua New Guinea, and the balloon in French Guinea.

The balloon is used in conjunction with several kinds of "tree raft" such as this one, light structures that can be left in the treetop for a few days at a time. Why, it looks quite comfortable! But the author writes that she makes sure not to drink much before ascending. It's a long way down to a lavatory, and she declines to carry a jug the way many men do.

There is much more to treetops than leaves and leaf research. Bromeliads and other epiphytes, including orchids, inhabit the branches, and sometimes seem to coat them. In this complex ecosystem there could be as many species of animal, from nematodes to insects to bats to rodents to the ubiquitous primates, as are found as ground level. Everywhere she and her associates and students have looked, they have found new species. Not just a few here and there, but hundreds. She writes of one collecting "bioblitz" that collected so many new beetle species that her systematist friends will be 10-20 years getting them all described and properly published. This is partly why she calls the forest canopy "the Eighth Continent".

And guess what all those insects are doing? Eating leaves (and each other, and trying to avoid being eaten by birds, and each other). Early estimates placed the amount of defoliation trees experience at 5-10% yearly. Not so; it is typically 30% or more. In some climates, where the trees are always adding leaves, it is 300% per year! When climatic stress or other ills weaken a tree, that level of herbivory soon kills them, hence the author's concern with a warming climate, which is a definite stressor.

Her work has always included education. That is becoming a primary focus. Firstly, education of students of all ages. Canopy walkways such as this one allow easy access for children, and other designs are wheelchair-friendly. Take a group of youngsters a hundred feet or so into the treetops, and you'll change a few lives. That goes for their parents and grandparents also.

She is equally involved in creating and maintaining opportunities for women in biology and the sciences in general. I suspect she would be heartened by an article I recently read about the number of women astronomers, which are becoming a majority at many institutions. But it is not just numbers. It is promoting pay equity and raising the prestige of productive female scientists, removing barriers to their growth as scientists.

Just as a side note: In a career of 40+ years writing scientific software, I have had both male and female supervisors and managers. While I have had a few bad bosses of both sexes, I have had a larger number of good female bosses than male. My two lifetime favorites are a man and a woman, so I don't consider sex either a benefit or detriment to being a good supervisor or manager.

One more branch (he-he) of Dr. Lowman's career has been promoting ecotourism, such as by using canopy walkways, as an alternative to "extractive forestry" (logging!). A thriving forest is really like the goose that will lay golden eggs one after another, while a logged forest may yield gold once, but then that's done. In many places, plantations that replace forests are less lucrative than ecotourism.

Canopy Meg is more than a great scientist, she is a great communicator. Her book is a joy to read. She has instantly become one of my favorite people of all time.