Dendrochronology Lab Methods - Breaking the Bottleneck!
Dendrochronologists frequently list sample preparation (mounting, surfacing, and imaging of increment cores) as a primary barrier in the process of efficiently generating high-quality tree-ring data. This issue is of particular importance in high-throughput tree-ring labs processing hundreds (or thousands!) of cores each year. The tree-ring lab at the University of Alaska - Anchorage has implemented innovations across all facets of the sample preparation process, ultimately reducing surfacing time by an order of magnitude and achieving high-quality tree-ring specimens at scale.
Oral presentations:
Tree-ring data development from Interior Alaska forest inventories: maximizing throughput and utility
Crawford DJ, Ferguson JC, Louangaphay D, Maher CT, Cahoon SMP, & Sullivan PF
Forest Inventory & Analysis Science Symposium, November 20, 2024. Virtual.
Poster presentations:
Twenty-first century solutions for high throughput, high quality tree-ring sample processing
Crawford DJ, Ferguson JC, Louangaphay D, Maher CT, Cahoon SMP, Packer DT, Schroder MC, Van Weel AM, & Sullivan PF
Forest Inventory & Analysis Science Symposium, November 19-21, 2024. Virtual.
Earlywood Vessel Area in Minnesota Bur OakMy master's thesis involved leveraging ultra-high-resolution images of bur oak tree rings to calculate the size of vessels, the small interconnected tubes that transport water from the roots to the crown of the tree. I investigated potential climatic influences on vessel area, as well as the modulating role of tree height.Poster Presentations:Anatomy, Allometry, and Climate; Assessment of Multiple Quercus macrocarpa Tree Ring Parameters at the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, MNAmerican Geophysical Union, 2019 Annual MeetingSan Francisco, CAView the poster here.Oral presentations:Straws in the Ground: Bur oak quantitative wood anatomy at the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, MN.Undergraduate Arboriculture guest lecture, Feb 11, 2020University of Minnesota - Twin CitiesEarlywood vessel area of Quercus macrocarpa as a potential proxy for climate in Minnesota.Association of American Geographers, West Lakes Division, 2020 Annual MeetingLa Crosse, WIWritten thesis can be viewed here.
Dendrochronology on the Upper Mississippi River floodplainWhat do the growth dynamics of these species look like? How is growth modulated by climate and/or streamflow? How might the makeup of these forests look different in the coming decades? These questions and more were addressed using standard dendrochronology (and a bit of quantitative wood anatomy!) of several hardwood species growing in the floodplain of the mighty Mississippi, along the Minnesota/Wisconsin border.Findings of this work were presented as part of a webinar series curated by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. A recording of the presentation can be viewed here.Downloadable version of visual aids can be found here.
False Rings in Northern Minnesota Red PineWhile ring-width and related metrics tell us a lot about temperature and precipitation, the presence of features within rings can inform us about extreme events in certain years. False rings are one of these features, and have been shown to correspond to competition characteristics, insect outbreaks, and moisture stress, among other things.
Poster presentations:
A False Ring Chronology of Red Pine (Pinus resinosa) in Superior National Forest, MN
Crawford DJ & Kipfmueller KF
Association of American Geographers 2015 Annual Meeting-April 23, 2015
We know that the earth is warming, but effective change is going to be slow unless we can communicate the issue to as many people as possible. Climate scientists often rely on maps, graphs, and numbers to illustrate the science of climate change. Daniel worked with Scott St. George in the Department of Geography to create A Song of Our Warming Planet, which converts NASA global climate data from 1880 to the present into a series of notes played on the cello. Bringing another of the five senses into the practice of scientific communication can help to convey the message to a wider audience than scientists have been able to reach before.View the project here.
The story of climate change is not the same everywhere. 135 years of temperature measurements show that the poles are warming faster than anywhere else on the planet. This composition transforms NASA climate data from four different regions of the northern hemisphere into music. If you listen closely, you can hear how dramatically the Arctic temperatures have changed over time relative to the rest of the hemisphere. In this piece, the cello represents the tropics, the viola represents the mid latitudes, the 2nd violin represents the upper latitudes, and the 1st violin represents the Arctic.View the project here.- Get in Touch!
