In collaboration with Bryan Yockers and the River Parks Authority, we are sampling post oak at Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area to assess post oak age structure and fire history. This area has a rich history of ancient post oak that date to the 1700's. (Photos from 2022).
We have been assisting the Oklahoma Nature Conservancy identify ancient Cross Timber trees as they plan for a prescribed fire.
(Left) - post oak
(Right) - blackjack oak
The Department of Biology manages the Selman Living Laboratory Field Station in Northwest Oklahoma. Wildfires burned through the property in 2016 and 2017. These were only a small group of trees that survived. One of the likely reasons is the lack of fuel on the gypsum outcrop in the foreground. So, there was limited fuel to carry the fire through these trees. Photo March 2018.
The TREE Lab has been an important contributor to the Oklahoma Academy of Science Field Meetings since 2013. Students from across Oklahoma have learned about trees and tree-rings. Photo is from the Spring 2017 meeting at Robber's Cave State Park.
Dr. Chad King works on collecting an increment core from Q. fusiformis without sliding down the mountain in southwest Oklahoma.
Students have always been an important part of the TREE Lab. Daniel, Jesse, and Lindsey discovered this post oak on the UCO campus that turned out to be older than UCO!
One of our current study sites is located at Arcadia Lake in Oklahoma County. This specific area is a bottomland forest that is dominated by green ash. We are studying the establishment of this bottomland forest following the formation of the lake in the mid-1980's.
Post oak wolf tree in Oklahoma County. While not ancient (1901 pith date), it is representative of past land cover and land use in the area.