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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs oak leaves\nrattle and pool beneath trees in Arizona\u2019s high country, one 100-year-old oak\ntree in Massachusetts is attracting a crowd of admirers online thanks to the\nwork of NAU researchers and a Coconino Community College student. The tree is a\nscientific wonder\u2014not because of its unique looks or a special way it grows, but\nbecause of its voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The idea for the\nHarvard Forest Witness Tree, a social media outreach project led by\npostdoctoral fellow Tim Rademacher<\/strong> of the Center for Ecosystem Science\nand Society (Ecoss) and Harvard University, began as a public outreach component\nof a study investigating the effect of environmental changes on wood growth,\nfunded by the National Science Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe tree is\nwired with sensors that measure its growth, sap flow, local climate and other\nfactors in real-time,\u201d Rademacher said. \u201cBecause we were measuring these things\nanyway, we thought, why not use the data to give the tree a voice?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the tree\u2019s\nTwitter account launched in July, it has gained more than 7,700 followers who\nregularly share the tree\u2019s messages and ask it questions\u2014which it answers. @AWitnessTree\u2019s\nTwitter and Facebook presence is the first of its kind in North America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Helping a tree to\ntrend on social media was a process two years in the making. In summer 2018 and\n2019, Rademacher worked at Harvard Forest with undergraduate interns Shawna\nGreyeyes of Coconino Community College and Kyle Wyche of University of\nPittsburgh to deploy the sensors and write analytical code that would connect\ndata streams from the tree to public messages on Twitter and Facebook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Greyeyes, who is\noriginally from Shonto, Arizona, worked on message coding and a website for the\ntree in summer 2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI kept several\nthings in mind while creating the messages,\u201d she said. \u201cWe went with a\nfirst-person narrative, with context and visuals that are hopefully easy to\nunderstand and connect with.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n This year,\nGreyeyes is a SEEDS SPUR Fellow for the Ecological Society of America and will\npresent her research on the Witness Tree at the society\u2019s national conference\nin summer 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Andrew\nRichardson<\/strong>,\na Regent\u2019s Professor in Ecoss and the School of Informatics, Computing, and\nCyber Systems (SICCS) and principal investigator on the research, said he hopes\nthe project helps those who may never visit Harvard Forest to connect with the\nWitness Tree and the long history written into its rings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIndividual trees\nhave held deep meaning for people across time, and it\u2019s exciting that Tim and\nShawna have imagined a new way, in our hyper-technological moment, for people\nto connect with trees, and nature,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rademacher pointed\nout that many other social media accounts online represent non-humans: pets,\nlandmarks or even other trees, but this project is unique because no humans are\ntweeting. It\u2019s all the tree, with the help of the algorithm. Rademacher built\nthe tree\u2019s computer program to work automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are not\nsitting there at the computer tweeting for the tree,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen it\u2019s hot,\nthe data tells us through the tree, not the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Twenty-four hours\na day, several times a minute, the program scans the data coming out of the\ntree\u2019s sensors and cameras, watching for thresholds that signal something\necologically significant in the tree\u2019s life: a surge in growth, a heat wave,\nheavy rainfall or seasonal changes in leaves. The tree often tweets in these\nunique moments, and it also posts photos of visits from wildlife and monthly\nsummaries of its growth and local climate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow are you\ndoing? @awitnesstree,\u201d Greyeyes tweeted one recent afternoon. Within four\nminutes, the tree had replied: “It is 7.7 \u00b0C (45.9 \u00b0F) right now\u2014warmer\nthan average, which means I will respire more carbon back to the\natmosphere.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rademacher said\nthe next steps for the project will depend on new funding and include\ndo-it-yourself tweeting tree kits for educators to deploy in their local\ncommunities. They also hope to translate the tree\u2019s messages into French and\nSpanish to expand its audience around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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