A picture of drought: ND ecologist matching NASA images with field data to measure forest health
Nate Swenson strides so quickly through the Wisconsin forest while carrying a large pole clipper that postdoctoral researcher Vanessa Rubio usually follows the 40 feet of rope dragging behind him.
When they reach the designated plot, Swenson extends the clipper about 30 feet high and pulls the rope to snip off a leafy twig from the canopy of a tall, tagged tree. The twig floats down through the dappled sunlight and lands in his hand.
It would be a majestic scene but for the mosquitoes. Hundreds and thousands of them, swarming everything that smells like warm blood.
Swenson cuts twigs from nine sample trees in each plot where the reflection of light from the leaves could show up in a space-based image. Rubio selects one leaf from each twig, folds it into a labeled test tube, and drops it in a metal canister of liquid nitrogen.
This flash freezing will preserve its RNA, which degrades quickly otherwise. Later in his campus lab, Swenson can study the leaf’s gene expression, which changes as it is stressed by drought later in the summer.
Latest ND News Wire
- In memoriam: Frank H. Collins, professor emeritus in the Department of Biological SciencesFrank Hadley Collins, professor emeritus in the College of Science at the University of Notre Dame, died Nov. 16 in Tucson, Arizona. He was 80.
- Panel explores pathways to peaceful co-existence in the Middle EastPeacebuilding activists Nidal Foqaha, Tehila Wenger and Ezzeldeen Masri joined the University of Notre Dame’s Lisa Schirch on Nov. 11 for a discussion in DeBartolo Hall about how to resolve the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in a way that provides peace, security and equal rights for all people living in the region. The event was the second in the Israel-Palestine Series of the 2024-25 Notre Dame Forum on “What Do We Owe Each Other?”
- Mendoza College of Business, Athletics team up to empower student-athletes as leadersThe one-of-a-kind partnership enables Mendoza and Notre Dame Athletics to collaborate in new ways to help student-athletes fully realize their leadership potential through greater awareness of career pathways in business.
- ‘Show kindness and compassion’: In Fr. TED Talks, Notre Dame community explores what we owe each otherLast Monday and Tuesday evenings (Oct. 28 and 29), hundreds gathered under a tent on the Library Lawn to attend a Notre Dame Forum event titled “Fr. TED Talks: Ideas from the Catholic Social Tradition That We Find Inspiring.” The event featured a series of eight speakers from the Notre Dame community, culminating in a talk by University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C.
- Gov. Ron DeSantis to deliver Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government lectureGov. Ronald D. DeSantis, the 46th governor of Florida, will speak at the University of Notre Dame at 4 p.m. Nov. 8 in Room 101 of DeBartolo Hall. Sponsored by Notre Dame’s Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government, the talk will serve as the center’s 2024 Jeanie Poole O’Shaughnessy Memorial Lecture.
- Arun Agrawal to lead Notre Dame’s new University-wide sustainability initiativeArun Agrawal, a renowned scholar of environmental politics and sustainable development, will join the University of Notre Dame on Jan. 1, 2025, as the inaugural director of the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative, a key priority in the University’s strategic framework.
