Overnight at the Moon

 By Richard B. Primack

 

“Truly the stars were given as a consolation to man.” Henry David Thoreau in Excursions.

 

The Moonrise Hotel in Saint Louis is unique in having a space-themed 1960s décor. People visiting nearby locations, including Washington University and the Saint Louis Zoo, might consider staying at this unusual hotel.  

Photo 1:  A moon replica emerges from the roof.

Photo 2:  The lobby stairs are illuminated in science fiction colors.

Photo 3. Giant photos of the moon enhance the lobby experience.

 

Photo 4.  Display cases feature scenes and objects from space exploration and popular culture.

 

Photo 5. Art objects inspired by science fiction, such as this futuristic radio, are encountered in the hallways.

 

  

 

 

Botanical Gardens More Beautiful with Glass Sculptures

 By Richard B. Primack

 

“To him who contemplates a trait of natural beauty no harm or disappointment can come.” Henry David Thoreau in Excursions.

 

 

The Missouri Botanic Garden has collaborated with artist Dale Chihuly since 2006 to enhance the beauty of its plantings with his glass sculptures. This special partnership is highly successful, delighting visitors and showing off glass sculptures and plants alike to great advantage. 

Photo 1.  A green tower draws attention to prairie plants.

Photo 2.  Red spears emerge from sand beds featured in a traditional Japanese garden. 

Photo 3.  A mass of orange curls highlights purple and red-hued plantings.

Photo 4.  Glass balls bring drama to a pond.

 

 

Century Plants Live for Decades and then Die

 By Richard B. Primack

“One moment of serene and confident life is more glorious than a whole campaign of daring. We should be ready for all issues; not daring to die, daring to live." Henry David Thoreau in his Journal.

 

Century plants get their name because they grow slowly for decades, perhaps even a century in some cases, and then flower spectacularly and die. As described in a recent article in the Washington Post, a century plant in Luthersville, Georgia, growing near the limits of its northern range, aroused great local interest this year when it sent up a giant 25-foot flowering stalk. 

Photo 1: The century plant in Luthersville with the flowering stalk developing. The photo on the left was taken in April and the photo on the right was taken in late May.

Century plants are often grown in warm, dry climates for their unusual rosettes of elongated grayish green spear-shaped leaves, each one up to six feet long. But a century plant really gets noticed when it reproduces after decades of growth, producing an inflorescence up to 30 feet tall, with clusters of yellow to orange flowers. 

Photo 2: The century plant flowering in early July.

The century plant puts so much of its stored water and nutrient resources into flowering and later fruiting, that it apparently dies in the months following. In fact, a flowering plant often produces small plantlets, or “pups,” on its stem at ground level, which can root and continue the life of the plant. 

 

Here is a link to the article: LINK

Long-term Phenology Research in the Rockies

 By Richard B. Primack

 

“Only that traveling is good which reveals to me value of home and enables me to enjoy it better.” Henry David Thoreau in his Journal.

 

Researchers at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) in western Colorado conduct climate change and phenology research projects that are similar to our work in Concord, MA. To gain insights into their research and share with them about ours, I visited RMBL from July 25-28, where I met with many researchers and presented a talk. 

 

The location was exceptionally beautiful, with mixtures of meadow and forest in the valley and snow-capped mountains above. At this high elevation of 9500 feet, the sunshine was brilliant and the air was dry. There were around 200 people living and working at the lab, which was more than I expected. 

 

Among the researchers were:

Photo 1: David Inouye has studied plant phenology in fixed plots for 52 years.

 

Photo 2: Amy Iler investigates how seasonal snow melts affect plant demography, and Paul CaraDonna looks at bee population dynamics.

Photo 3: Dan Blumstein studies marmot behavior. Phil Cafaro, an environmental philosopher, traveled with me to RMBL.

Photo 4: Ian Breckheimer (left) uses drones to monitor vegetation.

Photo 5: Brad Taylor examines how the timing of snowmelt affects the hydrology of mountain streams. 

Photo 6: Olivia Vought studies how climate change is affecting the timing of ecosystem services.

Photo 7: Arturo Aguilar (center), myself (left), and others looking at pollinators.

 

For more information about the RMBL site visit: LINK

Angry Swan

 By Richard B. Primack

“It is true, nothing could originally demand our respect, which was not, at the same time, capable, in a greater or less degree, of exciting our fear, but this does not prove fear to be the source of that respect.” Henry David Thoreau in his Early Essays and Miscellanies.

My son Dan and I had a remarkable encounter with an extremely angry and protective swan while kayaking on the Charles River two weeks ago. As we rounded a bend in the river in Dedham, we observed a family of swans, consisting of two adults and three babies. We kept to the opposite bank of the river to keep as far from them as possible. Despite this, the bigger adult swan, presumably the male, swam aggressively towards us with its wings raised up.

Photo 1: Angry swan with wings raised. Optic Mag

For about 10 minutes, the angry swan kept trying to get very close to us from behind, presumably to peck us and scare us off. We faced our kayaks toward the swan, and also used our paddles to keep it at a distance of six feet away. The swan continued this aggressive behavior even as the current took us 50 yards from the babies. There was a slightly humorous quality to the encounter, but it was also surprisingly tense as the swam seemed intent on doing us harm. 

Photo 2: Angry swan flying to attack. RealMantis

Finally, the swan flew back to its family, and we laughed out loud in relief, thinking that the strange incident was finished. But a few minutes later, the swan flew back to us, even though we were now more than 100 yards away from the family and paddling in the opposite direction. The swan proceeded to confront us for another five minutes, again trying to get behind us. We were relieved when the swan finally flew back to its family. 

We did not take any photos or videos of this swan, as we were so concerned about our safety during the episode. But here are videos of other swan encounters:

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Korean Flowering Data Show Dramatic Impact of Climate Change

 By Richard B. Primack

“I think that we may detect that some sort of preparation and faint expectation preceded every discovery we have made.”Henry David Thoreau in his Journal.

Since 1921, the Korean Meteorological Agency has been recording the flowering times of trees and shrubs in experimental gardens located at 74 weather stations across the country. This century-long record of plant activity, unequalled in all of Asia, has provided important fuel for climate change research. 

Figure 1: Sites of weather stations in South Korea.

Figure 2: Researchers at the Seoul weather station posing in front of flowering forsythia shrubs. Co-author Sangdon Lee is in the middle.

In a recently published article, we report that plants at these weather stations, including cherry trees and forsythia, are responding to record high temperatures with unprecedented earlier flowering times. There is no evidence that this advance toward ever earlier springs is stopping, as record high temperatures continue. In addition, these changes were surprisingly consistent and predictable given the magnitude and pace of change. 

Figure 3: For seven woody species, plants flower earlier in the spring in a consistent manner with warming spring temperatures. 

Why do these results matter? They show that the timing of spring is earlier now than at any point in the past 100 years. This will impact a range of natural processes and segments of society and the economy, such as agriculture and tourism, that depend on the timing of spring. It’s important to note that the changes in timing might be predictable, at least in the short term, providing an opportunity for people to anticipate and prepare for them.

Figure 4: Co-authors Sangdon Lee and Richard Primack discussing the project under a flowering cherry tree at one of the weather stations. 

As the planet continues to warm, the Korean data and this study can play a crucial role in identifying limits to nature’s response to climate change which can help guide us in minimizing the harmful impacts.

Figure 5: Planting of woody plants for monitoring at one of the weather stations.

The research team published this work in New Phytologist:   

Consistent, linear phenological shifts across a century of observations in South Korea by authors William Pearse, Michael Stemkovski, Benjamin Lee, Richard Primack, and Sangdon Lee.

Here is a link to the article: LINK

Generating Ecological Insights from Historical Data

 By Richard B. Primack

 

“The past is the canvas on which our idea is painted - the dim prospectus of our future field. We are dreaming of what we are to do.” Henry David Thoreau in his Reform Papers.

Ecologists worldwide are searching for historical datasets that can provide insights into how ecosystems and species are responding to climate change, often with a focus on changes in species’ phenology, distribution, and abundance.

In a recent article, we describe a number of examples of this approach, including a resurvey of Joseph Grinnell’s records of birds in the California mountains and our own research repeating Henry David Thoreau’s observations of the plants and birds in Concord, Massachusetts.  

Figure (a). Statue of Thoreau with a replica of his cabin at Walden Pond State Park. 

 

The digitization of museum collections and the recent explosion in citizen-science projects, such as Nature's Notebook and eBird, are offering new sources of data to test possible links among ecological phenomena, both past and present, observed at various scales.

Figure (b). Locations of herbarium specimens used to determine if Concord phenological patterns occur across eastern North America.

Figure (c). Herbarium specimen of trout lily (Erythronium americanum), a woodland wildflower. 

These types of studies – linking detailed site-specific historical datasets with larger-scale data from museum collections or citizen-science records – provide two additional benefits: they can help assess the quality of local-scale datasets and they can create compelling stories to communicate to the public about science in general and climate change in particular.

Figure (d). Based on herbarium specimens, the window of spring sunlight available to woodland wildflowers is predicted to decrease by 2100, with the strongest effects seen in the north.

Access the article here: LINK