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Humans are short and trees can’t talk—that’s why SERC postdoc Uzay Sezen brings a crossbow and liquid nitrogen into the forest with him. Read about how Uzay and the Quantitative Ecology Lab are unraveling the genetics of tree growth in our new blog post! http://s.si.edu/2sQ5ns9
May is #AmericanWetlandsMonth, so we're showcasing some of our scientists' favorite wetlands they've visited in the Americas. These flowers of the "tea mangrove" (or Pelliciera rhizophorae) come from Central America, in the tropical wetlands of Panama. The tea mangrove is one of the rarest mangroves on Earth. It was once thought to be extinct from the Caribbean coast, until a few small populations were discovered Nicaragua and Colombia in the 1980s. In 2004, SERC mangrove ecologist Candy Feller discovered a large group in Bocas del Toro, Panama.
Did you know mangrove trees also give "live birth"? Tea mangroves use heart-shaped propagules to reproduce, like the brown one above the second photo. Inside the propagules, germinated seeds can develop while still attached to the parent tree. Later, they fall into the water and float until they find a suitable place to take root. Despite their rarity, tea mangrove forests shelter enormous plant diversity, and offer critical habitat for the endangered mangrove hummingbird, Amazonina boucardi—so they're important habitats to preserve. (Photos: Emily Dangremond)
American Wetlands Month continues! SERC ecologist Candy Feller is standing next to the northernmost mangrove in the eastern U.S.—a black mangrove in Florida, between St. Augustine and Jacksonville. In the tropics and subtropics, mangrove wetlands protect coastal homes from hurricanes, and provide critical habitat for fish, crabs, birds and other life. As temperatures warm, more mangroves are moving north, and black mangroves are moving fastest of all. Ecologists think this is because black mangroves are tougher and better able to deal with a little cold weather. (Photo: Emily Dangremond) #AmericanWetlandsMonth
Read more about the mangroves' northern march: http://sercblog.si.edu/?p=4686
April 22 means it’s Earth Day, and this year’s theme is Trees for Earth. We picked 22 of the most amazing things forests do for people (and the planet). A few of our favorites:
Happy Earth Day!
January 4 is Trivia Day! Fun fact about forests: Trees get 95 percent of their biomass from the air. Sound impossible? Trees grow via photosynthesis, a process that turns carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and sugar. They pull the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As for the water that makes up the other half of the equation? The trees may take it up directly from the soil. But before the water reached the ground, almost all of it rained down from the sky. In other words...it also came from the air.
Various silhouettes in a canopy of leaves. #SERC #environment #nature #trees #leaves #canopy #green #lookup #diversity (at Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, Maryland)
An iridescent dogbane leaf beetle found during BiodiversiTREE, #SERC's long-term #citizenscience project investigating the power of diversity in forests.http://www.serc.si.edu/citizenscience/biodiversitree/home.aspx Photo by @coraline_k (at Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, Maryland)
Shot of the marsh channels opening up at #SERC's Global Change Research Wetland (GCREW), where researchers explore global change. Learn more at http://www.serc.si.edu/labs/biogeochem/research_wetland.aspx Photo by @13geegs
A shot by citizen science intern @coraline_k of the marsh boardwalk on SERC's Java History Trail. (at Smithsonian Environmental Research Center)
