Hello and salutations, world!
I am Christine Sit, and this is my blog, "The More You Know." In it, I will be sharing various experiences I gain and bits and pieces of the environmental world that excite me.
First up is Puerto Rico. Near the end of September, I will be joining a team in Puerto Rico to complete a tree census in El Yunque National Forest, which is the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. Forest Service. Cool, right?
During my 3-month internship, I will be identifying, measuring, and mapping trees in the Luquillo Experimental Forest Plot, a 16 hectare plot (about 40 acres). I will learn all about tropical ecology and be able to meet the researchers who study tropical forests for a living!
Another cool thing about the Luquillo Experimental Forest is that it is a member of the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program. The LTER Network consists of 28 sites across the world where researchers look at the effects of long-term and large-scale phenomenon!
For the Luquillo Forest, I will be helping out with the first census after Puerto Rico was hit by Hurricane Maria in 2017. A 4-year gap may not seem like a long time for a forest, but an intense environmental disturbance like a hurricane can have lasting impacts. We will be looking at how the forest community has shifted. The hurricane will have knocked many trees, opening up the canopy of the forest and providing more sunlight to life on the forest floor. With access to more light and more space, younger and smaller plants have the opportunity to grow both in size and in number. Just like human society changes as generations age and populations shift, so too do forests.
Well, that’s all I have for now. Come back later this month to find out more about what I’m doing once I am actually in Puerto Rico!
Sources
“Visit El Yunque National Forest.” n.d. Discover Puerto Rico. <https://www.discoverpuertorico.com/article/visit-el-yunque-national-forest>. Accessed September 9, 2021.
“Luquillo LTER.” n.d. LTER Network, National Science Foundation. <https://lternet.edu/site/luquillo-lter/>. Accessed September 9, 2021.
“About the LTER Network.” n.d. LTER Network, National Science Foundation. <https://lternet.edu/about/>. Accessed September 9, 2021.
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