National Geographic Spotlights League Grantee, Canopy Pioneer

A scientist featured in National Geographic magazine’s October 2009 redwoods coverage and a September 29, 2009, TV show has received five research grants from Save the Redwoods League, including a new award to study how rapid climate change affects redwoods.

Professor Stephen C. Sillett, Kenneth L. Fisher Chair in Redwood Forest Ecology at Humboldt State University, is recognized as a redwoods expert. The National Geographic Channel TV show, EXPLORER: Climbing Redwood Giants, and the magazine explain his research and tell the story of an unprecedented redwoods project to which Save the Redwoods League contributed.

Sillett and his students changed the way scientists looked at redwood forests when they began climbing the trees and discovering crowns supporting a rich community of life. He studies all aspects of redwood forest canopy ecology, including epiphytes, tree physiology, canopy microclimates and wildlife. Since 1999, Save the Redwoods League has awarded Sillett five grants to research such aspects of redwood forests, including the League’s most recent redwoods and climate change initiative that began in September 2009.

Captured by the Canopy

Tree canopies have long held Sillett’s attention. The desire to determine how redwoods function over millennia fuels his interest in these massive organisms. Sillett started climbing tall Douglas-firs as an undergraduate biology major at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. At age 19, the athletic Sillett climbed 300 feet to the top of his first redwood in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park—without ropes or safety equipment. Up there, he found a forest within a forest, including small trees, huckleberry bushes and other plants. This anecdote and others are detailed in the book, The Wild Trees, by New York Times best-selling author Richard Preston.

Redwoods Cut Carbon Emissions

With his latest Save the Redwoods League grant, Sillett aims to better understand how redwood ecosystems mitigate carbon emissions.  Redwoods’ magnificence is one reason people should care about redwoods, he said. Another reason is that they reduce more carbon emissions than previously thought—an important discovery in this era of rapid climate change.

“While redwoods are remarkable organisms and they have inspired their conservation because of their glory, there's actually a lot more going on in them than you can actually perceive from the ground,” Sillett explained.  “So it's only by climbing and measuring them above the ground that we've gotten clues about how they actually work.

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