ESA 50th Anniversary Cameo Series with Meg Lowman: Out on a Limb – Research in Australian’s Forest Canopies

Below is from the ESA 50th Anniversary Cameo Series week’s cameo – “Out on a Limb – Research in Australia’s Forest Canopies” by Meg Lowman, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, North Carolina State University:

Meg Lowman ESAMy career was not conventional; I climbed trees, and allegedly became the first “arbornaut” studying Australian rain forests. I feel fortunate that I was never knocked unconscious by a falling branch, never bitten by a brown snake, nor fell out of a tall tree (just small ones). Arriving at SydneyUniversity as the lucky recipient of a University post-graduate scholarship in 1979, I assumed there would be a large cohort of tropical forest ecology students. Alas, there were none! But my advisor, plant ecologist Peter Myerscough, kindly told me to drive north until it turned green, and then get to work…. that those true-green tracts were the last remaining rain forests in Oz. I put a lot of miles on the Holden station wagon from the SydneyUniversity carpool during my PhD years, commuting to Dorrigo and LamingtonNational Parks for regular data collection about herbivory and insect biodiversity in rain forest canopies. Although I was too naïve to notice initially, only later did one of my male colleagues remind me that there were only two women graduate students in biological sciences at the time, (and he went on to suggest that our positions were rather a waste of time because “we would only get married and have children”). Much has changed in the last 30 years, with more women and minorities seeking careers in biology, and more students studying Australian rain forests….. although canopies are still vastly underexplored! (Given the global importance of forests for biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, and other ecosystem services, I hope that our research focus on forest canopies will expand significantly.)

Despite the paucity of rain forest researchers and the apparent shortage of women pursuing graduate research in the 1980s, it was the best and worst of times in the Antipodes to explore, adventure, and make discoveries “out on a limb.” I learned an enormous amount about people, about politics, about statistics, and most importantly, about rain forests during my graduate days in Australia. Since most fellow students at Sydney were marine ecologists, I devoted many hours dodging waves on intertidal rock platforms and snorkeling in coral reefs, exchanging field research assistantship duties with fellow graduate students. So not only did I learn about herbivores in rain forest canopies, but also became familiar with herbivory on rocky shorelines and herbivore behavior on coral bommies. This trade-off inspired all of us to ask theoretical questions about ecology without the conventional habitat boundaries, and to experience the challenges of field work in different ecosystems, creating a very special espirit de corps that remains over a lifetime of special friendships. I recall with greatest gratitude learning statistics from Tony Underwood, and hearing Peter Myerscough patiently and repeatedly explain to me that I needed to climb the trees to measure herbivory (not just stand on the forest floor with binoculars as I had hoped). Due to the lack of academic mentors in my field, I “collected people” and pieced together different skillsets: learning to identify trees from forester Alec Floyd, sewing my first climbing harness on Julia James’ sewing machine (that she used for caving equipment), welding a slingshot in the Botany Department machine shop, and crawling along the forest floor identifying seedlings (while combating leeches) with Geoff Tracey and Len Webb.

A beer and petrol strike during my first Christmas in Australia forced the postponement of my big field installation – the car could not be fueled, and my fellow students would not traipse into the bush without some “tinnies.” As a small-town kid from upstate New York, I suddenly realized that this was an amazing country!

Intertwined with forays into the canopy asking questions about mono-dominant versus diverse canopies and their guilds of herbivores, I also became intimately involved in research on the forest floor, thanks to a lifelong mentor who “adopted” me during my first year as a graduate student. Joseph Connell, distinguished professor of biology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, came to Australia to ask questions about species diversity, a topic of strong theoretical and applied interest to both biologists and conservationists at the time (and still today). Joe elected to work on both coral reefs and rain forests in Queensland. A marine biologist by training, he needed a field assistant who knew rain forest plants. As luck would have it, I was the only student at the time studying tropical trees, and so had no competition for this coveted partnership with Joe, “groveling” along the forest floor mapping seedlings and flicking off leeches. Joe was truly one of the wonders of the ecological world, and influenced students worldwide. Since 1963, he and colleagues had identified, counted, and mapped all the trees, saplings, and seedlings along marked transects in two Australian rain forest plots.(I was part of his second generation of botanists, following after Len Webb and Geoff Tracey). This long-term data set is only just beginning to yield important results about which trees “make it to the top” and what influences survival or mortality. Along our muddy transects, many new theories were hypothesized, whilst eating Minties (our favorite Australian sweet) interspersed with Oreos (my favorite American “biscuit” that Joe kindly brought from California). Many prominent scientists sacrificed sweat, blood (to leeches) and toil along these muddy seedlings transects – Bob Black, Peter Chesson, Laurel Fox, Don Potts, David Lamb, Patrice Morrow, Wayne Sousa, Peter O’Reilly, Dave Walter, Kyle Harms, Tad Theimer, Kitty Gehring, Ian Noble, and Pete Green (also a long-term postdoc), to name but a few. We used to correlate that, the muddier the conditions, the more intellectual were our musings (or so we thought!). Such memories of the awesome people, the dogged data collection, and the unique flora and fauna surrounding our field work seems part of the magic and good fortune of pursuing a PhD in Australian rain forest ecology during the 1980s.

On a more sobering note, the leadership of Queensland at that time seemed intent to cut down most of the last remaining rain forest stands. But that political tension combined with the cadre of inspirational scientists working “Down Under” at the time only served to inspire our research, dedication, and curiosity to ask questions about how complex ecosystems worked. And with a global spotlight increasingly focused on tropical rain forests, the remaining tracts of Queensland tropics came under conservation protection. Although exposed to underlying gender bias in the outback and during early career activities, I also became intimately involved with some of the most beautiful places on Earth. O’Reillys guesthouse still features a prominent canopy walkway, that was “borne” out of my pioneering canopy work, and served as an early tool for rain forest conservation and education outreach; and the Daintree region is now riddled with eco-tourist lodges instead of sawmills. Even the maligned Giant Stinging Tree has a fond place in the hearts of many, having repeatedly featured it in my public talks and citizen science efforts. As one of the few tropical biologists at the time who specialized in Austral-Asian tropics and later moved to the Neotropics, I gained a unique perspective because most tropical rain forest biologists did the opposite, working predominantly in the Neotropics with an occasional visit to the Old World. I was fortunate to have learned about tropical ecosystems from outstanding mentors, witnessed compelling times for global conservation, and helped discover a unique array of relatively undiscovered flora and fauna in some of the world’s most beautiful forest canopies. …. not to mention rearing two wonderful children who were born and raised amidst sheep, crimson rosellas and booyong trees. Those halcyon days as a graduate student at SydneyUniversity remain some of the best memories of my life.