Rain... in January?

Last night, there was a lot of rain. Will this turn out to be yet another not-really-winter?

The boats are not for public use

I came back from holidays to find that someone had taken out one of the row boats. They "kindly" left it in the then-water to then get stuck in the ice.



Luckily, the ice had set up enough for me to walk out on and pull out the boat.



It should be pretty obvious to most civic minded individuals that boats that don't belong to them on a property that isn't theirs should not be used. However, just to make it clear for everyone:

The boats are for class use or for approved research on Third Sister Lake. 

The boats are not for recreational use by the public.

That is all.

UPDATE (Feb 13, 2013): An e-mail was sent to me to explain how the boat ended up in the ice:

I am responsible for that. I was walking in the Forest (on a Sunday, I think) and when I got down to the dock I saw that two dogs had fallen through the ice about 200 feet west of the dock and about 75 feet from shore. There was a deer about 100 feet from the other side of the lake that was struggling in the ice to get to shore. I suspect the dogs (looked like two German shepherds) had gone out on the ice in pursuit of the deer and broken through. I tried the ice but it wouldn't hold my weight and I was alone so I didn't want to run the risk of falling through myself. I tried to find a branch long enough to reach the dogs but couldn't find one long enough. I called my wife and had her call the Humane Society to see if they could help out. Then I put the rowboat in, hoping I could scoot it along on top of the ice to get to the dogs (using a pole and snow shovel I got from your porch). That proved impossible and the pole I was using to move it broke. I used the shovel to get close enough to shore to get out. But I couldn't retrieve the boat so I left it.

The dogs drowned before the Humane Society got there. I called (or emailed, I forget which) the UM Security people to tell them that the boat was in the ice and why it was there. I wasn't sure who else to get hold of.

This explains what happened. However, I wonder if what this person saw was two coyotes. At a distance, coyotes and German Shepherds have a passing resemblance, sharing similar coloring and - in the winter - a thick coat. Also, in previous winters, I have seen coyotes running across the ice. That, plus the lack of any mention of dog owners nearby, makes me think that it was coyotes that went in after a deer.

I really do hope that no dog owner lost their dogs in such a tragedy. However, if you are a dog owner, it is your responsibility to keep your dogs on leash and safe (for themselves and to others).

Of course, if you do see something wrong in Saginaw Forest, and you cannot find the caretaker (because I'm not always on-property) please do get in touch with the UM Department of Public Safety at (734) 763-1131.

Whence come trees?

As you walk around Saginaw Forest - or actually any area with trees - you might not have wondered where the trees actually came from. I mean, it was probably never a question that you asked. But do you really know where all that "stuff" that makes the tree actually came from?

Before you check out this video from Veritasium, stop for a moment and make a prediction.

Got it?

Okay, now click, "PLAY":



For all of you who don't have a background in biology, was your prediction correct?

So now that you know where all the mass of a tree comes from, you might have an additional appreciation for why forests (and also deforestation) is important when thinking about the future.

Raking the trails

Much of the trails in Saginaw Forest have been raked - by yours truly.





Why did I do all of this? After all, next year, it will all get covered again, right?

Well, each of the last few years, I've had to negotiate walking along the pathways in the springtime, with them in a treacherous semi-frozen, semi-slushed, semi-muddy mess. Over the year, the walking of the trails crushes the leaves, breaking them down. And then, when the snows come, the ground (and leaves and mashed leaves) gets saturated. When this starts to thaw, the leaves produce discontinuous layers of ice, frozen leaves, water, slosh, wet leaves, etc. In other words: a mess.

The idea is that - since most of the soil of the property is sand, and the majority of the paths are gravel laid atop this sand - if I rake the leaves, there will be greater amounts of infiltration in the spring. Furthermore, even in places where the leaf litter buildup and decomposition have accumulated a significant enough layer of soil, raking away the leaves will allow for this soil to be more easily washed away, revealing the gravel path below (thus improving the quality of the pathways - as pathways).

I even raked a trail out to Westview Way, so that it will be easy to stay off the untrodden ground (we don't like unnecessary soil compaction) while walking into the facility:

Surveying the creek

Last week, as the final part of a class project, there was a student finishing up the survey of the creek bed.

They aren't the oldest trees in the world, but...

In reading through my news items for today, I came across an article describing the fragility old trees in a changing climate:

A report by three of the world's leading ecologists in today's issue of the journal Science warns of an alarming increase in deathrates among trees 100-300 years old in many of the world's forests, woodlands, savannahs, farming areas and even in cities.

The reason behind this increased rate of die-off among old trees? Well, it's not only because the trees are reaching the end of their lives (some trees can live for several centuries, after all), but because the environments in which these trees live are changing. And why is this happening? Well:

"According to one popular theory, trees get a double-whammy when the thermometer rises. "During the day, their photosynthesis shuts down when it gets too warm, and at night they use more energy because their metabolic rate increases, much as a reptile's would do when it gets warmer." With less energy being produced in warmer years and more being consumed just to survive, there is less energy available for growth. "This hypothesis, if correct, means tropical forests could shrink over time," Professor Laurance said. "The largest, oldest trees would progressively die off and tend not to be replaced. Alarmingly, this might trigger a positive feedback that could destabilize the climate: as older trees die, forests would release some of their stored carbon into the atmosphere, prompting a vicious circle of further warming, forest shrinkage and carbon emissions."

In Saginaw Forest, we don't think of the trees as being particularly "old" - at least I doubt that many people think of Saginaw Forest as some sort of primeval wood, but it's important to remember that some of the trees on the property have joined the century club, having been planted waaay back in 1904. And these trees are dying off, although whether it's due to being planted too close or due to physiological exacerbations caused by climate stress (since many of these old Saginaw Forest trees are actually native to more northerly regions of the state), I can't say.

Still, it's something to think about when you're walking through the forest, recalling (in some deep recess of your mind) that you are walking through a forested landscape that - while not a "natural" forest - is in the range of 60-100+ years old. It's still a relatively "new" forest in that way, having not "matured" to be dominated by the climax community that we would have experienced way back in the early 1800s: a hardwood forest of oak, maple, and beech. It may also be sobering to recall that - thanks to climate change and the changed driving forces that our new and future climate have on the local ecology - Saginaw Forest will not be changing to resemble that 1800s forest of Southeast Michigan so much as a forest that would have been more typical of central Ohio.

In sum - and to bring it back to the topic of the paper - the century-plus old trees on the northern side of the property will likely die faster now than they would have if the climate hadn't changed, that those trees will also be more quickly releasing their stored carbon into the atmosphere, and that those reaches of the property are on a destined path toward a climax forest that would have been more recognizable around the Columbus, OH of 1800 than the Ann Arbor, MI of that same time.

"I will never look at trees the same way again"

I'm a fan of the Veritasium channel on YouTube. I get to learn stuff about physics that I feel that I should have known already. This time, I knew the answer beforehand, but for people who didn't know exactly how trees can grow so tall, especially when you consider that you can't draw water up a straw for a distance of more than 10 meters. Since we know that trees can grow taller than 10 meters (~33 feet), and we know that trees have to have water climb all the way up their branches, then how do trees even exist?

Watch as a physicist has his mind blown:


... and now you know!