Geosciences Professor Discusses Tree-Ring Work in the Amazon in 'Short Talks'

University Relations

David Stahle

The latest edition of Short Talks From the Hill, a podcast from the University of Arkansas, features David Stahle, Distinguished Professor of geosciences in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Stahle is a dendro-climatologist, a person who studies tree rings for what they can tell us about climate prior to the advent of modern record keeping. His most recent research has been in the Amazon basin of Brazil, where he is working to extend the climate records of one of the most important ecosystems on the planet.

"Paradoxically, the most biodiverse forests in the world are the tropical rainforests of Amazonia or the tropics, the global tropics," Stahle says in the podcast. "But annual ring formation is extremely rare in these tropical forests. And so we're trying to find that needle in a haystack, those few native tree species that do reliably form annual rings, are long-lived, like centuries long, and are sensitive to precipitation variability."

The work has taken Stahle by boat, plane and automobile to clear-cut areas, sustainable logging operations and some of the most remote forests in the Amazon, places where triple-canopy, virgin rainforest still predominates. By carefully studying cedrela odorata, one of the few tropical species that do produce reliable annual growth rings, Stahle has managed to extend the climate record in parts of the Amazon by hundreds of years. 

For more episodes of Short Talks From the Hill, go to ResearchFrontiers.uark.edu, the home of research news at the University of Arkansas, and then select the Multimedia link, or visit the "Local & Podcast" link at KUAF.com.

Short Talks From the Hill highlights research and scholarly work at the University of Arkansas. Each segment features a university researcher discussing his or her work. Thank you for listening!