To a group of researchers hiking down a steep, slick mountain trail in El Yunque recently, the destruction was readily apparent. Image Volunteers getting instructions on how to assess damaged trees in El Yunque as part of a project led by María Uriarte, a Columbia University ecologist. Organized quickly after the hurricane, the research — starting with a painstaking, tree by tree damage assessment in representative plots — will analyze how severe storms affect the amount of carbon forests pull out of the atmosphere and store . But the work is not straightforward, as counting damaged trees in even a modest forest is a practical impossibility. Image Andrew Quebbeman, a doctoral student with Dr. Uriarte’s group, sets up a GPS instrument to determine a precise location in the damaged forest.

Source: New York Times March 07, 2018 16:55 UTC