Volunteers Tap Trees for Climate Clues
A project to collect core samples from trees could shed light on the effects of global warming.
American hemlocks are living libraries. Able to live to up to 500 years, their rings offer a record of earth鈥檚 climatic variation. A new project is asking volunteers to gather these invaluable data before the trees disappear, possibly within decades due to the dual threat from climate change and the invasive woolly adelgid insect it brings, which weaken trees by sucking them dry. The , or HeLP, is enlisting volunteers to take samples with a corer (the wound heals naturally). 鈥淥ur approach is that this is an archive of information that could answer many questions鈥濃攁bout how forests responded to the highs and lows of historical climate changes, for instance鈥攕ays Amy Hessl, a cofounder of HeLP and a dendrochronologist at . In addition to coring, researchers are collecting ecological information they could one day use to restore hemlock should they discover an adelgid-resistant variety.