Climbers' Corner • Tree Academy
Monday • Tuesday • Wednesday
What We Don't Know about Tree Biomechanics: A Biophysical Perspective on Why Trees Fall Down
Summary
Engineering
theory and practice can be used to assess and even predict the mechanical
behavior of trees in ways that have helped reduce the probability of tree
failure and thus reduce or avoid damage to private and public property. This
approach continues to become more sophisticated and dependable as our knowledge
about the behavior of trees increases and as we learn more about the mechanical
properties of plant tissues in general. However,
there are significant and important gaps in what we know about plant
biomechanics, in general, and about tree mechanics, in particular. This lecture
will discuss and illustrate seven aspects of tree biomechanics that require
more research if our ability to understand tree mechanics is to improve (the viscoelastic
behavior of wood, structural and material anisotropy and heterogeneity,
temperature dependencies, intrinsic biological variation, the effects of drag
and dynamic bending, mechanisms for damping, and the mechanics of root
anchorage).
Presenters
Karl
J. Niklas received a B.S. (in mathematics) from the City College of the City of
New York and a M.S. (in chemistry) and Ph.D. (in plant biology) from the
University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois. Niklas joined the Cornell faculty in
1978, where he is the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Biology and a
Stephen H. Weiss Presidential fellow.He
currently teaches courses in introductory botany, plant evolution, and
biomechanics. Niklas’ research is a
biophysical approach to plant evolution.
He is the author of over 325 research articles, four books [Plant Biomechanics 1992, Plant Allometry 1994, The Evolutionary Biology of Plants 1997,
and Plant Physics (co-authored with
Hanns–Christof Spatz) 2012; University of Chicago Press]. Niklas is the recipient of numerous awards
including a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship, the George Gaylord Simpson Prize of
the Peabody Museum (Yale University), the New York State University
Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Alexander von Humboldt
Stiftung Preis for Senior USA Scientists, the Jeanette Siron Pelton Award for
studies in plant morphogenesis, and the Botanical Society of America’s 1996
Lifetime Merit Award and 2006 Centennial Medal. He served as the
Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal
of Botany (1995–2004) and as the president of the Botanical Society of
America (2008).
Climbers' Corner • Tree Academy
Monday • Tuesday • Wednesday