canopymeg@gmail.com

The call for abstracts is open for contributed oral and poster abstracts, and guidelines can be found on http://canopy2009.org/html/sub3.html and http://canopy2009.org/html/sub4.html respectively.

Social events at the conference include a Canopy Art exhibition, Canopy Photo and Film festival and public lectures along with other traditional events.

Please find more information on www.canopy2009.org, and forward this to your colleagues to make this conference a success.

2/16/09 Update: The theme for this conference is Forest Canopies: Conservation, Climate Change and Sustainable Use. The conference program will include keynote and plenary speakers on critical topics, invited and contributed scientific symposia, methods workshops, a student symposium, poster sessions, field trips, a film festival and traditional canopy social events

You can now visit www.canopy2009.org for more information and please forward to your colleagues. ATREE invites you to present your work at the conference. Your active participation will help meet global challenges and make this conference a success. Dr. Meg Lowman is co-chairing this international event.

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SAVE THESE DATES!!!!!

5^th International Canopy Conference 2009
Forest Canopies: Conservation, Climate Change, and Sustainable Use
October 25-31 2009 Bangalore INDIA

Download the brochure

Forest canopies are the least explored habitats in the world. They not only support high terrestrial biodiversity, but also represent a critical interface between the atmosphere and the earth. Forest canopies also provide goods and services to support diverse human activities. Thus interactions between forests and humanity offer opportunities to explore sustainable use of such resources, particularly for sustaining local livelihoods. Sustainability is vital for environmental policies to foster conservation, sustainable use and mitigation/adaptation to climate change. This demands the integration of canopy science with physical science, social science and information technology.

The 5^th international canopy conference in 2009 will bring diverse professionals together to build inter-disciplinary links in canopy science to foster increased understanding of this unique subset of forest ecosystems. ATREE (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment) is the major supporting institution for the conference, with Convenors Dr. Soubadra Devy (soubadra@atree.org) and Dr. T. Ganesh (tganesh@atree.org). Dr. Kamal Bawa and Dr. Margaret Lowman will serve as co-chairs. The goal of the conference will be to highlight the respect to important global challenges, especially climate change, sustainability, and conservation. The conference will provide an opportunity to build networks across continents, to facilitate capacity-building, and to address issues requiring information from multiple sites, within countries and across continents. The proceedings of the conference will be published in an edited volume, with a subset of papers published as a special issue of an international journal. Special sessions will be held on: Education; Climate Change; Ecosystem Services and Sustainability Initiatives; Innovative Tools; and an Emerging Issues Round Table discussion.

Special features of the conference include:

• All-day field trip to view Indian forests and inspire discussion
• Canopy film festival (similar to the successful programs from the 1^st conference)
• Canopy awards ceremony
• Student session
• Publiclecture to promote canopy education
• Opening Plenary talk by Thomas E. Lovejoy, President, H. John Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment

Save these dates! A timeline leading up the conference will be:

1. Call for symposia - January 2009
2. Call for abstracts - March 2009
3. Registration by 10 April 2009
4. More information will be posted on www.atree.org

Please contact Soubadra or Ganesh (emails above) with suggestions for speakers that may represent new, unpublished, innovative canopy projects around the globe.

One of my most recent projects involved global conservation of African forests. During January, I traveled to Bahir Dar, Ethiopia,a center of the Coptic or Christian Orthodox churches in this proud country. Working with the one (and only!) forest conservationist in northern Ethiopia, I presented a workshop to the church clergy, explaining the value of the forests surrounding their churches. In Ethiopia, a church is not considered to be serving its mission unless it is surrounded by a forest. As a consequence, some forest patches are over 1500 years old (as are the churches…. some amazing architecture!). (When I think of our Florida churches, usually surrounded by cement parking lots, I am quite embarassed!) Ethiopia’s landscape is predominantly cleared for agriculture, and also deforested for fuel; so these church forests house their last remaining biodiversity. This includes pollinators (important for their crops), birds, animals, and trees many of which are already listed by the United Nations as endangered species. Even more important, springs of fresh water are often housed in these forest patches, providing the only clean water supply, thanks to the surrounding trees.

Together, my colleague and I asked for the blessing of the bishops for our conservation project. When I showed them photos of their church forests using Google Earth, they gasped. They had never seen Google Earth, much less a computer! They understood that NO OTHER forests existed within miles of their own sanctuary, and they could also see the rings of soil color changes, indicating rapid shrinking of their property due to encroaching agriculture. They fervently asked for our support, because maintaining these forests (not just the building itself) is part of the responsibility of the clergy.

One simple solution is barbed wire fences. For approximately $10,000 we can create perimeter delineation for at least 10 churches since labor is almost free. TREE Foundation generously funded this workshop for the bishops, and now we seek additional funding to help Ethiopia save its important biodiversity. Who knows if the cure for cancer exists in their unstudied vines or tree canopies! If anyone has any thoughts about philanthropy that supports religion and/or environmental issues, this project is a real win/win/win for the donors, the church, and the planet!

(Click to enlarge.)

The beautiful Casey Key home of Henry and Susanne Rodriguez was the perfect setting for an intimate and fun party to celebrate the launch of the TREE Foundation, with president Gerri Aaron and executive director Dr. Meg Lowman.

The dynamic duo shared their plans to build an elaborate, multilevel tree house on the Crowley Museum and Nature Center grounds that will link children with nature.

The foundation’s mission is “Tree research, exploration and education, both locally and globally,” says Lowman. “Our flagship project was the Myakka canopy walkway, and we hope the tree house project will be a logical next step to focus on linking kids to nature through trees.”

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As Meg Lowman explained in her Nature’s Secrets column, treehouses serve several important biological functions for children who are fortunate enough to experience them:

Treehouses exemplify biophilia, an important term coined by E.O. Wilson that reflects our innate human desire to connect with the natural world. In an evolutionary sense, humans descended from ancestors in the treetops. Anyone who pauses at the zoo to watch a monkey cavorting in the branches is amused, inspired and subtly reminded of something inside that tugs on our evolutionary memory banks.

Treehouses also bring kids into contact with the hotspots of the forest — flowers, new leaves, pollinators, birds, arboreal mammals and millions of beetles. The essence of energy from sunlight all converges in this region high above the forest floor.

Third, canopies undoubtedly produce the purest air on the planet, emanating fresh from greenery that transforms carbon dioxide into useful energy. Oxygen is just one of the byproducts of this important process of photosynthesis. Just as patients appreciate plants in hospitals, perhaps kids benefit from the clean, fresh atmosphere enveloping a treehouse.

Fourth, treehouses are safe sanctuaries in a world of chaos and technology, and elicit the creative energy of youth. (And don’t overlook the fact that they make cozy spots for sleep-overs with best friends!)

Professor of Biology and Director of Environmental Initiatives at New College Meg Lowman, a.k.a. “Canopy Meg,” will speak at United Nations Association, Sarasota-Manatee Chapter, on March 24 at 6:00 pm. Professor Lowman will be joined by Dr. Eugenie “the Shark Lady” Clark. The event is entitled “Two Women: Two Extraordinary Scientists” and will be held at the Herald Tribune Building, 1741 Main Street, in the first floor Community Room.

For more information, please contact Catherine Seress at (941) 928-1187. Please note that searing is limited.

The data was collected from a single Eucalyptus tree in the early 80s by Margaret Lowman in conjunction with an Earthwatch expedition. The leaves were gathered from the top down with the aid of a cherry picker, bagged, weighed, and sorted. Since all of the leaves were removed at roughly the same period in the tree’s life this creates a snapshot of that tree’s foliage. Originally the data was used to determine the distribution of insect damage in its foliage, as well as the distribution of the that foliage over the whole of the tree. The current work we are doing with the data set, represented by the 3-D graph, is to determine how much of a tree’s canopy needs to be sampled in order to obtain an accurate picture of it’s health with the intent of harvesting only as much as is statistically needed. A recent analysis of the data shows that much of the insect damage is concentrated at the lowest heights of foliage and the areas close to the trunk. The damage shows a trend of becoming less severe out into the branches. From this graph, one can therefore determine that it would be an inaccurate sampling technique to gather only the most easily accessible leaves to represent that tree. They would have a higher probability of suffering from more damage as compared to the rest of the canopy. It is in our hopes that students can use this data set as a real world example to learn some of the principles of good sampling techniques and statistical analysis.

Lowman M.D., Burgess A.D., and Higgins W.D. 1987. The biomass of New England peppermint (Eucalyptus nova-anglica) in relation to insect damage associated with rural dieback. Australian Journal of Ecology (12): 361-371

Dr. Meg Lowman to Speak at VAAS Dinner
Topic: Conservation for the Next Generation

The Venice Area Audubon Society is privileged to have the renowned scientist Dr. Meg Lowman speak at the VAAS fundraising dinner Sunday, March 15th at 5:00 PM at the Crossroads American Grille.
Dr. Lowman has recently returned from speaking at the Ecological Society of Australia Conference in Sydney, Australia, where she was interviewed by ABC Radio National. During the interview she dicussed the mysterious world of the canopy and remarked that over half of the life on earth lives in the tops of trees which includes millions of insects and thousands of birds. Dr. Lowman stressed the urgency to uncover the secrets of the rain forest before we lose the forests.

More info and sign up form PDF

Sarasota, FL, March 4, 2009 — New College of Florida invites you to “feel the heat” on March 17, when the College welcomes Harvard-trained marine biologist-turned-filmmaker Randy Olson to campus for a special discussion and showing of his latest movie, Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy. The event, which will be held at New College’s Harry Sudakoff Center starting at 7:00 pm., is open to the public. Reservations are recommended. Tickets are $5 for the general public; free for New College faculty, students and staff with their New College ID.

Noted for his satirically critical examination of hot button scientific and environmental issues, Olson, who received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1984 and gave up a tenured professorship at the University of New Hampshire to attend USC and become a filmmaker, is often as critical of scientists poor communications’ skills as he is of the zealous critics of evolution and global warming who regularly make their way into the news. His film Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2006 and received critical acclaim. Eventually, it was picked up by Showtime and is currently available on DVD around the world.

Olson’s most recent film, Sizzle, tackles the controversy over global warming. It premiered in July 2008 and is currently being shown at film festivals and on college campuses around the country. Its airing at New College is the only current screening in Florida.

During his visit to New College, Olson will discuss the making of Sizzle, as well as his belief that scientists and researchers must do a better job of communicating with the general public. According to Olson, the scientific community’s inability to clearly present their arguments to the public often results in too much time being wasted responding to PR campaigns waged by fringe groups and too little time actually being spent seeking solutions to critical issues facing our planet.

Olson is being brought to Sarasota by Mote Marine Laboratory, as the final guest speaker in their annual Special Lecture Series, sponsored by Robert and Jill Williams. Olson’s lecture at Mote Marine will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, March 16, in Mote’s Immersion Cinema, 1600 Ken Thompson Parkway, Sarasota. That lecture, on his new book Don’t Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style, is open to the public. Mote also will show Olson’s award-winning film, Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus, in the Immersion Cinema throughout the weekend of March 14-15. Showings of Flock of Dodos will be free for Mote Aquarium visitors with their paid admission. For lecture seating reservations at Mote or more information, please visit www.mote.org/lecture or call 941-388-4441, ext. 369.

For reservations to hear Randy Olson’s talk at New College and to view his new film Sizzle on March 17, please contact New College Special Events Coordinator Greg Hite at (941) 487-4155 or email events@ncf.edu. For media inquiries, please contact either Aimee Chouinard at New College of Florida (941-487-4152) or Nadine Slimak at Mote Marine (941-388-4441, ext. 417).

New College of Florida students spent an afternoon tramping through the tall grass and undergrowth of Red Bug Slough Preserve on Wednesday, trying to figure out the best way to flush out monitor lizards and Burmese pythons.

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Public sightings of invasive reptiles have increased recently. Meg Lowman, director of environmental initiatives at the school, says the creatures are spreading into the northern half of the county after being seen for several years around Englewood and Venice.

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