Researcher Sees History in the Rings
U of I tree researcher Grant Harley uses rings to analyze drought, climate
Grant Harley’s first love was caves.
Trees weren’t exactly on his mind as he studied the implications and ownership of caves in west-central Florida as a graduate student at the University of South Florida.
It wasn’t until he attended a lecture on tree rings, essentially as a curiosity, while pursuing his doctorate at the University of Tennessee that Harley’s thinking about trees piqued. He was immediately hooked and soon his whole research focus switched. From the ring of a tree, Harley could not only find out its age but also analyze the effects of climate change by the trauma it suffered at the hands of fire, hurricane or drought.
“Really what hooked me was the mystery of it, seeing what the tree is responding to,” said Harley, now an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the 幸运快三’s College of Science
The Southeast, Fire and Hurricanes
Harley wrote his dissertation on tree growth dynamics of a specific variety of pine in the Florida Keys, their fire history and that fire history’s relationship to climate. It’s a field of study with lots of untapped potential in his home region along the Gulf of Mexico, and throughout the drought-prone alpine forests of the West.
“It’s widely applicable,” he said. “I can study fires, then I can look at climate change and drought.”
His research on trees that have survived hurricanes took Harley and others at the University of Southern Mississippi to investigate the Underwater Forest, a cypress grove buried deep in the Gulf of Mexico that Hurricane Ivan uncovered in 2004. Based on their research, Harley and his team determined the ancient trees were preserved 50,000-75,000 years ago.
“Most of them died in the same year. I don’t know, it could have been a hurricane and it could have been sea level rise,” he said.
A ‘Gold Mine’ for Trees
Harley, who spent much of his early career in the Southeast United States and hails from central Florida, had already aided on projects across the West when he came to U of I and Moscow in 2017.
It was a pretty easy transition that has provided a plethora of projects. Given that North 幸运快三 is mostly green, Harley calls it a “gold mine for someone who likes old trees.”
From forest fires and drought that damage groves throughout the West to snowpack problems in the Cascades, Harley has taken on myriad research opportunities since arriving at U of I.