OLD OAK HOLDS CLIMATE SECRETS

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OLD OAK HOLDS CLIMATE SECRETS

ATHENS, Ohio, November 3, 2000 (ENS) - Studies of a 373 year old white oak 
found in an Ohio forest suggest it is the oldest recorded hardwood east of 
the Mississippi. But while this ranking is exciting to the researchers 
studying the forest, they are more interested in what the tree can tell them 
about the climate and ecology in the region over almost four centuries. The 
region's oldest oak, felled during a 1998 storm, is one of 10 under scrutiny 
by environmental and plant biologists at Ohio University who do research in 
Dysart Woods, a university land laboratory in Belmont County in southeastern 
Ohio. Scientists use this information to track how climate and drought 
conditions affect tree growth. The undisturbed old-growth forest provides a 
clear picture of what a forest would look like without human intervention. 

"Any one of us has maybe a 10 or 20 or 30 year frame of reference, but that 
may represent less than 10 percent of a life span of a tree," said Brian 
McCarthy, an associate professor of environmental and plant biology. 
"Studying the tree allows us to reconstruct fairly clearly what's been 
happening over the past 400 years." Such information is useful for 
determining weather patterns for years without recorded climate data. 
Studying old trees gives researchers insight into climate and ecological 
patterns of this region and, perhaps, a glimpse of future climatological 
patterns for Ohio. Studying the tree rings also indicates how adverse weather 
conditions affect a tree's life. So far, researchers have looked at evidence 
of droughts that occurred in the region before documented weather records. 
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