What’s growing in the treetops? Professor of Biology Trains
to Study Forest Canopies
Studying forest canopies is somewhat like research in the
ocean. The environment in both is
inhospitable to humans without special equipment and training. Thus both present special challenges in order
to examine the living things within them. Because of this, the forest canopy is
commonly overlooked in studies of forest ecosystems. Canopy studies in wet tropical forests have
shown that the majority of the herbaceous plant diversity and approximately
half of the moss and fern diversity within these forests occurs exclusively in
the crowns of trees. Various plant communities such as cypress swamps, live oak
forests, and floodplain hardwood forests within the southeastern United States,
particularly in Florida, Georgia, and other southern states, potentially harbor
diverse communities of mosses and ferns within their canopies, but these remain
mostly unexplored. Allen C. Risk,
botanist and Professor of Biology at Morehead State, took a class in tree
climbing (with ropes) in northeastern Georgia during summer 2010 with the
intention to document canopy epiphyte (plants growing on other plants) richness
and diversity in a wide variety of ecosystems within the southeastern U. S. The
class focused on Doubled Rope Technique, tree selection criteria, rules to
protect yourself and the tree, ethics of tree climbing, and knots, knots,
knots. Dr. Risk plans to use these
techniques to access the forest canopy and then compare how species richness
for mosses, ferns, and other plants is divided between the ground and the canopy
within these forest types. Dr. Risk
plans to take additional climbing classes to increase his skills and broaden
his ability to access forest canopies for additional botanical research.
