FEBRUARY 2019
Tamara Milton is headed back to PDBFF in Brazil to continue her work with Lecythidaceae tree mapping and to continue her dissertation research on the hypoerdominance of species in the family. Robyn will link up with her for a couple weeks in February there.
JANUARY 2019
And a link to the journal article on it from Heredity, first authored by Diego Serrano HERE
JUNE 2018
Robyn Retires!!! Wahoo….. She continues as Director of the Edwin S, George Reserve in Pinckney Michigan where she is completing the liana mapping on the Big Woods plot established as a Forest-GEO site.
FEBRUARY 2018
Oh, equipe trepadeiras!! I miss being in the forest – these images remind me of how fun it is to be there. Below, left to right: Alexandra, Jairo, Isabela, & João Batista
And a bit closer so you can see the tags on lianas and the red paint marks (left to right: Isabela, João, Alexandra, & Jairo with specimens):
OCTOBER 2017
John Bradkte just shared this image of a monster Celastrus orbiculatus from the Peach Mountain Observatory. Beware removing other invasives: I have seen this come in like gangbusters afterwards!!
AUGUST 2017
TEMPERATE LIANA MAPPING IN A LARGE PLOT
We have started the LIANA mapping process in a CTFS plot in a temperate site in southeastern Michigan! The E.S. George Reserve in Livingston County is already home to a 23-hectare mapped temperate forest plot as a part of the Center for Tropical Research Program. Except… no lianas had been mapped!
Spearheading an enthusiastic plant-crazy crew of recently graduated and continuing undergraduates, Robyn has undertaken the project as her first large effort as director of the E.S. George Reserve. We first regridded the plot to include the requisite 20 x 20m cells, and then began mapping the lianas larger than 1cm in diameter at 1.3m above the base. By August 2, we had completed seven of the 23 hectares, and we are aiming at ten before we stop for the season. In addition to tagging all stems of lianas over 1cm diameter, we are also creating a species list for each 20 x 20m cell of all lianas of any size. This will allow us to monitor invasive lianas and to quantitatively map even small lianas.
The Liana Team, above, includes (from left to right): Gucci Fan, John Bradtke, Lindsay Ford (team leader), Shelby Stadler, and Olivia Mitchinson
JUNE 2017
Robyn spent a month in Brazil doing field work in PDBFF plots north of Manaus with her bolsistas, Priscilla de Sá and Cadimiel as well as expert tree climber Cunha da Silva. After a week of field work and a week in the lab in Manaus, she went to Mato Grosso to do some field work in the Rio Ronuro Ecological Preserve, just west of the Rio XIngu. This is transition forest between Cerrado and Amazonian forest. We (Rainiellen S. Carpanedo, Mario Roso Marcusso, and Robyn) collected more than 60 species of lianas in flower or fruit. And a few hundred ticks…
Mario, Rainiellen, anteater, and Robyn: Rio Ronuro
Robyn & Rainiellen enthusiastically pressing a bullate-leaved Bignoniaceae
APRIL 2017
We welcomed Tamara Milton to the lab in Fall, 2016. Tamara comes to us from Sleeping Bear Dunes and Paraguay. WELCOME Tamara!! Tamara is now undertaking research on distributions of Lecythidaceae trees in the PDBFF area north of Manaus, Brazil
