The Importance of Looking Down (From the Archive)

I am a firm believer in the idea that if you want to understand the future of a tropical forest - look in the understory (see Regeneration Surveys). Repeated observations of marked seedlings are the crystal ball (maybe Ouija Board is a better analogy) of forest dynamics.  A species may be represented by a large number of canopy trees at the moment, but if it doesn't have any seedlings or saplings established in the understory, it's days are numbered. Want to assess the sustainability of forest use? Count seedlings. Want to make imperceptible, lasting changes to forest composition? Selectively weed the understory (see Tembawang). 

When you walk through a tropical forest, the natural tendency is to look up.  To scan the crowns for flowers and fruits (if collecting herbarium specimens) or to marvel at the size of the canopy trees (see Size Matters). Nothing wrong with this, but there may be more to be learned by looking down. [NOTE: The sapling with the orange flagging is Grias peruviana (see Grias Predated, Umberto Pacaya, and Varzea Still Life); I still have that machete].

Collections Notebook

When you collect an herbarium specimen (see Herbarium Specimens), you need to write down the information about where you collected it, how big the tree was, what color the flowers and/or fruits were, and, maybe, what the plant is used for. You do this because if you don't you will forget these things, and you need the information to fill out the label that goes with the specimen. All botanists carry a collections notebook in the field for recording this information. My collections notebook from the mid- 1980's when I was working in the Peruvian Amazon is shown above.

Couple of things to note if you can make them out in the image. After 28 years, two of the collections, Nos. 183 and 189, still don't have a name. Collections Nos. 186 and 188, a Caryocar and a Couepia were determined by Sir Ghillean Prance, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew for eleven years and Vice-President for Botanical Science at NYBG before that and the person who hired me. No. 187, a Pourouma (see Uvilla), was determined by the late C.C. Berg, Dutch botanist, great guy, and world expert on the Moraceae, an enormous plant family comprising over 40 genera and 1000 species. 

I love looking through all of the stuff that's inside this old collections notebook, but the cover (see below) is also pretty fantastic. Was all that I could find at the time in Iquitos, Peru, but the bunny holding the tulip with the little bird on it seems perfect. [NOTE: I especially like the fact that I drew a moustache on the bunny for some reason].   

Science Week: Day 2

Original Post: The Importance of Looking Down
Date: April 7, 2009 at 5:58 PM 

I am a firm believer in the idea that if you want to understand the future of a tropical forest - look in the understory (see Regeneration Surveys). Repeated observations of marked seedlings are the crystal ball (maybe Ouija Board is a better analogy) of forest dynamics.  A species may be represented by a large number of canopy trees at the moment, but if it doesn't have any seedlings or saplings established in the understory, it's days are numbered. Want to assess the sustainability of forest use?  Count seedlings.  Want to make imperceptible, lasting changes to forest composition?  Selectively weed the understory (see Tembawang). 

When you walk through a tropical forest, the natural tendency is to look up.  To scan the crowns for flowers and fruits (if collecting herbarium specimens) or to marvel at the size of the canopy trees (see Size Matters). Nothing wrong with this, but there may be more to be learned by looking down. [NOTE: The sapling with the orange flagging is Grias peruviana (see Grias Predated, Umberto Pacaya, and Varzea Still Life); I still have that machete].

Need a Ladder?

Sometimes you need a ladder to count fruits. Too hard to carry one to the field, so the most convenient alternative is usually to make one in situ. José Tuanama (see The Water Was Up To Here) makes a sturdy ladder in a flooded forest (bosque ribereño) in the Peruvian Amazon. [NOTE: I believe this is the same piece of forest where we did the yield studies of Spodias mombin].

And Collecting Fruit

A companion to yesterday's post (see Counting Uvos). Grainy, black and white print shows Umberto Pacaya (see Umberto Pacaya) and me (on the left) standing in front of a large capinuri tree (Maquira coriacea (Karsten) C.C. Berg) in the flooded forest behind Supay cocha (see Caño Supay) in the Peruvian Amazon. Same clunky, heavy, yet locally-produced, rubber boots. Equally great haircut. Same large machete, carried with comparable insouciance. A magical time and place for studying tropical trees.[NOTE: I still have the machete, an authentic Collins purchased in Mexico].

Counting Uvos

Elysa counts and maps "uvos" (Spondias mombin L.) seedlings under one of her sample trees in the Peruvian Amazon in 1985 (see Yield Studies, The Water Was Up To Here, and The Importance of Looking Down). There is so much that I like about this photo. The painted blue tips on the stakes used to grid the area under the crown of the tree. The metal clipboard. The clunky, heavy, yet locally-produced, rubber boots. Elysa's haircut. The huge machete (marked with red bandana) that she is carrying with such insouciance. [NOTE: I still have that clipboard].

25 Years

Participated in a beautiful ceremony at the Empty Hand Zen Center last weekend to commemorate 25 years of marriage. Photo above shows the original clay figure that was on top of our wedding cake, and a snapshot from the wedding in Jenaro Herrera, Peru (see Jenaro Herrera) on November 22, 1986 featuring (r-l) Christine Padoch (maid of honor), Elysa (bride), me (groom), Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez (best man), and Oscar Paredes (alcalde of Jenaro Herrera). The title of the book, The Wheel of Life, visible to the right on the book shelf, pretty much says it all (thx, Elysa).

Camu-camu (From the Archive)

From 1984 to 1987, I lived and did research along the Ucayali River in the Peruvian Amazon.  One of my study species was a small riparian shrub, Myrciaria dubia HBK McVaugh, known locally as "camu-camu". The fruits of camu-camu have the highest concentration of Vitamin C of any fruit in the world.  Oranges have 30 mg of ascorbic acid/100 g of pulp, rose hips have about 100 mg, and camu-camu, in a class by itself, has 3,100 mg of ascorbic acid/100 g of pulp. The species grows in extremely dense stands along the banks of ox-bow lakes.  I ate a lot of camu-camu fruit while I was studying the ecology of this species.  It made blisters on my lips...but I never got a cold.

[NOTES: The second image shows a fruit collector in Supay cocha near my study site in Peru.  This picture was on the front page of the Washington Post (below the fold) on June 29, 1989.  All images were scanned from slides.]

[MORE NOTES (added to re-post): There is a Wikipedia entry about Myrciaria dubia here. Not sure I agree with all of the information presented, and I am curious why there is no photo of the fruit. Or why none of my published work on the species is referenced. Sigh.]

Caño Supay

During the years when I was living in the Peruvian Amazon and studying camu-camu (see Camu-camu), every morning I would meet up with Umberto (see Umberto Pacaya), walk down to the boathouse, throw all my gear in the Myriciaria (a dark green, wooden boat made for me by a local villager), and motor off to Supay cocha to count, tag, measure, collect, or do something with camu-camu plants. Trip took about 30 minutes, and after turning left off of the Ucayali River we would enter a winding channel, or caño, known as Caño Supay. Image above shows what this channel looked like on most days. It was usually 7:30 or 8:00 AM, i.e. rush hour, when I made this trip, and I would always reflect on the people inching forward in cars on the Hutchinson River Parkway on their way to work. And feel the wind in my hair. And see the kingfishers, the monkeys, and the Couroupita trees. And smell the river. And count my blessings (thx, Umberto).

Parahancornia peruviana

I spend a lot of time counting and marking seedlings and then going back every couple of weeks to see what happens to them (see Regeneration Surveys and The Importance of Looking Down). Tedious. But extremely informative. The species shown here is Parahancornia peruviana (Apocynaceae), and the seedlings are growing in the arboretum at Jenaro Herrera in Peru (see Learning the Names). Which goes a long way in explaining why some of the seedlings are growing right out of the fruit. Not a lot of frugivores in the arboretum.  The fruits of Parahancornia peruviana are actually quite sweet and delicious.  They have a slight citrus smell and, given the appearance of the fruit, are known locally as "naranjo podrido" or rotten orange. [NOTE: This image was scanned from a slide taken in 1986].