We’re doing more than any organization our size should be capable of.
We’ve gotten it done because of our partners like founding members and UCLA Distinguished Professors Stephen Hubbell and Patty Gowaty and Harvard’s E.O. Wilson. It’s getting done because of our long and expanding relationships with The Nature Conservancy and Alabama A&M University, with the Student Conservation Association and Americorps, and with research partners at University of Alabama, University of Georgia, Jacksonville State University, University of West Alabama, Yale and elsewhere. We’re getting it done because our board members roll up their sleeves whenever we get stuck in the mud, and because of the growing support of our local communities and legislative delegation. And we hit above our weight because of you, and your support throughout our fledgling years. We’ll need your support more than ever in the coming year, as we build on the foundation we’ve laid. These are the founding donors who helped this research center get started. And these are some of our many active programs:
In the Forest Dynamics Census, every tree counts
Teams from the Research Center and Alabama A&M have labeled, identified and mapped some 75,000 tree stems as we near completion of our massive 150-acre forest dynamics plot. That’s about 200 football fields worth of trees. The scale of it is hard to imagine until you see it, every stem larger than a pencil with its own ID tag, as far as you can see in every direction. It’s a major effort by more than 50 people, requiring years of climbing up hills and over rocks while concentrating on the precise measurements needed to draw the forest in precise detail.
Even with this first census, we’ve discovered many surprising things about Paint Rock forests — tree species no one knew existed; ; more species of trees than on any other forest dynamics plot in North America; ; rare and common trees oddly and unevenly distributed, as if there were some secret in the landscape and soil directing where they should go.
There’s already enough new information here to keep the nation’s top taxonomists, geneticists, foresters and ecologists busy for decades. To sort all this out, we continue to work with researchers not only from Alabama, but also from University of North Carolina, University of Georgia, Austin Peay University in Tennessee, Morton Arboretum in Chicago, University of New Hampshire, University of Maine and many others. UCLA Distinguished Professor Emeritus Stephen Hubbell and U.S. Forest Service researcher Doug Booher are helping direct our science planning while conducting their own research on the plot.
Now, thanks to team led by Dawn Lemke and Alabama A&M, the first 50 acres of the plot is already undergoing its RE-census in 2024 —that’ll be the first of 10 or more re-census efforts over the next 50 years. Those recurring censuses are the key to understanding the dynamics of the forest, its growth rates, its ability to capture carbon, its response to changes in climate and carbon dioxide. All the things we need to know to protect the future of our forests.
TRAINING A NEW GENERATION
You’ll shake your head when you see it: The census is obviously a lot of work. But just as importantly, it’s a training ground for a new generation of scientists, of all backgrounds, from all over the state, the country and the world. Most of our research interns would never have had a chance to even encounter such a diverse forest system. But these interns live in it and live with it for months at a time. For those who have only seen nature through a microscope or on a cell phone, It changes the way they view the world.
We’ve introduced some 50 research interns to the science and wonder of the Paint Rock forest. In the coming year, we hope to introduce even more — and we’re raising the funds to enhance their educational experience, by encouraging them to develop their own research interests outside the census itself.
Our commitment to training the next generation of scientists is making a tangible impact on the scientific community’s diversity and inclusivity. By supporting minority and disadvantaged students, we’re sowing the seeds for a brighter, more equitable future for the environmental sciences and conservation.
Restoring a great forest, a seed at a time
In the burlap bags stored in our barn, some 75,000 shortleaf pine cones — each collected by hand from the tops of trees throughout the Cumberlands — have been quietly releasing nearly 2 million seeds. In our special processing barn, those seeds have had their wings clipped, the “blanks” were sorted from the live seed, and the whole lot cleaned of debris. Now the nation’s top forestry nurseries are producing hundreds of thousands of our seedlings for use in restoring what was once one of the nation’s most widespread and important ecosystems, the shortleaf pine savannas. With the help of our interns, a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant and many great partners, we collected those cones over several falls in an exhausting effort. Nearly as we can tell, that’s the first time in 70 years or more that Eastern shortleaf pine seeds have been collected at any significant scale.
These are the seeds of a revival not only for the landscape, but for a way of a life that was so important to the Cumberlands. By the time, we’re done, we hope to have produced enough seedlings to restore tens of thousands of acres of shortleaf pine, and in the process create a restoration industry for Paint Rock Valley that will provide seeds and career opportunities for decades.
THE LIFE EMERGING FROM OUR CAVE RESEARCH
The caves of Paint Rock Valley have long been known as a destination for entertainment and adventure. But the Greater Paint Rock Ecosystem has not only one of the greatest concentrations of caves in North America. More importantly, it supports the greatest concentration of cave life. But now researchers are beginning to recognize that this surprisingly diverse cave life may have big implications for understanding life aboveground, and even on other planets. Top cave researchers like University of Alabama’s Hazel Barton, University of Alabama Huntsville’s Matt Niemiller and U.S. Geological Survey’s Alan Cressler are working together and with us to better understand these cave systems and processes — and how they have interacted with human well-being for tens of thousands of years. You can’t begin to imagine what they’re finding there. If you’re interested in hearing more and supporting these efforts, please let us know.
THE GENES OF OUR FUTURE
Thanks to our founding partners like Harvard’s E.O. Wilson and UCLA’s Stephen Hubbell and Patty Gowaty, we’ve long recognized that it isn’t enough to know all species. It is just as important to understand the surprisingly variable genetics within those species.
As conditions on the planet continue to change at a rate not seen for millions of years, those genes are likely our best hope for weathering the future. A single tree in Paint Rock with unusual resistance to pests or heat or drought could harbor a genetic code that determines the future of an entire genus of trees — and may help make all the forest more resilient in the process. That’s why we’re in discussions with the Hudson Alpha Genome Sequencing Center and researchers at multiple universities to decipher the DNA of our forests and ecosystems in a way that’s never been done before. We’re already deeply involved with Hudson Alpha and Jacksonville State University in unravelling the genetic future of one of Alabama’s most neglected ecosystems — the bamboo canebrake. Our ambitious plans for a DNA census in our forest dynamics plot could be critically important to the future of ash, elms, sassafras, beech, butternut and other trees on the brink.
If you’re interested in supporting the genetic future of North American forests, ask us to explain.
PAINT ROCK RIVER: WHERE THE FLOOD IS THE ARK
Paint Rock River sits in the center of the most aquatically diverse hydrological unit in North America, the Middle Tennessee River system where it dips into Alabama. Paint Rock is arguably one of the most intact major tributaries in the entire Tennessee River system. A couple of miles of this stream support more freshwater fish species than all of California. Species of fish, mussels and snails remain in Paint Rock that have been lost elsewhere. It includes what is probably one of the greatest concentrations of endangered and threatened species in North America — sometimes a dozen species in few hundred yards — and that’s a relief, because if they weren’t here, they might not have a future.
But in spite of its importance to North America’s largest river drainage system (the Mississippi-Ohio-Tennessee), much of the Paint Rock remains a mystery. There are new species of fish that are so poorly researched they still don’t have names, and critically endangered mussels species whose life cycles are not known. The Paint Rock may support the greatest concentration of aquatic snail diversity globally, but scientists can’t count them all because they’re still trying to determine what families of snails they belong to. Even the way water flows through and shapes the Paint Rock landscape remains a big question — and it’s not just fish and mussels that suffer. Because we have such a poor understanding of where this river’s waters come from and where they go, many people may be more vulnerable to catastrophic flood than they realize.
For this reason, we’ve launched a major effort to secure lands along the Paint Rock River that can be devoted to research — with the same kind of concentration and consistency that we’ve devoted to our forest research. We now have more than two miles of river frontage under permanent conservation or research agreements. Work with us to expand that conservation and research effort.
OUR CAMPUS: A HOME FOR RESEARCH
The Paint Rock ecosystem’s unique character and its biological splendor is shaped by its immense size — covering some 450,000 acres — and its limited access. But the lack of access that left many ecosystems here relatively intact has also limited research into those systems. That’s why the Paint Rock Research Center campus is so important to our efforts.
This past year, we finalized the long-term mortgage on our central campus, which includes 10 acres and more than 7,000 square feet of residential, lecture and research space. We’re now developing a strategy to acquire an additional 3,500 square foot home and 10 acres adjacent, along with a long term lease on additional housing on more than 1,000 acres of land in the upper parts of the Valley.
They’re impressive buildings, with details and comforts most researchers aren’t used to. But that’s the point. We want to attract researchers from around the world. And we want them to say, as did David Attenborough’s Silverback film crew after filming here for a month, that this is the best residential and research facility they’ve ever worked with. There’s increasing demand for space next year and our rooms are filling up. We’ll need to expand as soon as possible.
GUIDING CONSERVATION THROUGH A CHANGING CLIMATE
As climate continues to change and new pathogens attack vulnerable species, the survival of forests in most of Eastern North America will depend on the movement of new species and genetics from the ancient storehouse of species and genetics in the Southeast. The 40 species of oak native to Alabama will become increasingly important as the 12 or so oak species native to the central Appalachians falter. Unfortunately, the creatures and conditions that once conveyed pieces of the forest farther north during previous climate upheavals are now mostly lost to us. If we take an active hand in building these new forests — and we will likely have to — we better be prepared for the consequences.
Our meticulous research and data collection paint a vivid picture of how forests work, adapt, and survive. Insights gained from these slopes will not only determine the future of North American forests but will also pinpoint which regions and species demand urgent conservation efforts and where those species are most likely to survive. Let us show you how Paint Rock helps us do that.
Paint Rock Forest Research Center is a 501(c)(3) organization, with an IRS ruling year of 2018, and donations are tax-deductible