ENHS Nature Trails November 2002 Article 1

This month's speaker: Alan Dickman

"The evidence tells us that the trees in this forest are diseaed and that we must begin to . . . ." Today the impact of these words can both monopolize our e-mail and polarize our community. Scientists themselves will have divergent viewpoints regarding a course of action, and the abundance of variables will cloud and distinguish each situation. This month's speaker, Dr. Alan Dickman, will help sort out some of the fact and fiction that directs our feelings in support or opposition to forest management practices, as well as bring us up to date on some of the latest scientific understanding of the health of our forests.

Alan received his BA in 1976 from UC Santa Cruz and earned his PhD in 1984 at the University of Oregon. He teaches an upper division forest ecology course and introductory courses in biology, ecology and environmental studies at the University of Oregon. His interest in science education often extends outside the university and currently he serves as the lead advisor for a video/web course designed for high school biology teachers, funded by Annenberg/CPB and produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting. Alan has won several teaching awards, including the University of Oregon's prestigious Ersted Award. With that background we're ensured of a stimulating and informative talk. Here's a little more about Alan.

SNAKES, CAMPING, THE RIVER, THE FLOOD, AND WASHINGTON D.C.
My parents were both born in Silverton, Oregon and grew up during the depression living or working on farms. I was raised in Roseburg and spent many days playing with friends catching snakes, frogs, grasshoppers and butterflies. Nature did not have a capital N---it was just always there and part of what I did. I viewed the out-of-doors more as an opportunity for adventure than for study, but I am convinced that time spent outdoors as a child had a lasting impression upon me and is partly responsible for what I do now.

My family was well off, but I don't think the idea of going to a city and spending time in a hotel appealed to any of us, so family vacations usually involved camping trips to the mountains, often somewhere along the North Umpqua River or to the coast. My father taught me how to fly fish, to tie flies, to read a river, and to paddle a canoe. I helped my mother pick strawberries and beans in the summer and can or freeze produce for winter. It wasn't until much later in life that I thought of these as special skills--to a kid they seemed like an essential and natural part of life and I assumed it was something everyone did.

I had the great fortune to live in a house on the North Umpqua River for two years between the ages of 10 and 12. My father told me that when I was able to carry our canoe to the river and back by myself, I could go out alone. He didn't specify how I had to transport the canoe, so pretty soon I was inching the canoe down and back and having the time of my life. My father was lucky that I never drowned nor got into serious trouble, and my mother has almost forgiven him now for making that offer. (I recently received that canoe as a gift.) These experiences on and around the river have overshadowed most of the rest of my early memories. One experience I"ll always remember was living through the flood of 1964 and seeing huge trees float by our house like small sticks. I was more interested in seeing how the river could leave fish stranded in our front yard or transform "my playground" in awesome ways than I was worried about the mud in our house or the contamination of our well. Being a kid definitely had its advantages.

When I was twelve, my family moved to the suburbs outside of Washington D.C. I was a hick thrown into a new culture and the insecurity of Junior High all at once. I was just old enough to enjoy the history and museums of the east coast, but I spent four years yearning for sparkling rivers and tall mountains. When we moved to California I remember feeling that the redwoods and a coast with real waves were the next best thing to being back in Oregon, and vowed that one day I would return to the Pacific Northwest.

INSPIRED CLASSES, INSPIRED INSTRUCTION
I spent four years at UC Santa Cruz majoring in biology and environmental studies. Sring quarter of my junior year a set of three classes, Plant Ecology, Animal Ecology, and Ecology Laboratory, influenced my every moment. I lived and breathed ecology and spent several weeks working with a small group of students studying the effects of a recent fire on forest regeneration in the Santa Lucia mountains. One of my professors, Steve Talley, was in his first year of teaching and had the energy and took the time to see that we all got a feeling for what field studies were all about. Another teacher, Andy Moldenke, had the wisdom and patience to teach me a few basic ecology concepts. I was hooked. It also helped that my then girlfriend and now wife was spending a year abroad studying in Spain, so it was easy to devote my full attention to biology.

INSPIRED INSTRUCTION FROM FAMILIAR NAMES AND THEN . . . .
Childhood memories of mountains and rivers drew me back to the Pacific Northwest and I visited colleges in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia before deciding to attend the University of Oregon to do graduate work with Stan Cook who was interested in the forests around Waldo Lake. With some background in fire ecology, I was eager to help him study the interactions between fire and a disease called laminated root rot, prevalent in those forests. George Carroll and Everett Hansen taught me about fungi and plant diseases, and David Wagner taught me how to identify plants. I received my PhD in 1984 before heading to Tacoma, Washington for a teaching job at Pacific Lutheran University.

I came back to Eugene in 1986 and have been teaching biology and environmental studies here at the UO ever since. I relive my childhood by taking my wife and sons canoeing, hiking, drift boating, and fly-fishing. The North Umpqua River is still a place of great importance to me.

AND NOW FOREST DISEASE AND FOREST HEALTH, NEXT FRIDAY'S TALK
One hears a lot of talk about "forest health," as if it were something that could be measured. I want to spend a little time with you thinking about what forest health is (or maybe just what it isn't) and then look at a few cases of forest diseases that might have lessons for how diseases in general might affect forests. I'll end up by talking about two diseases that have been in the local news: Swiss Needle Cast and Sudden Oak Death, and will entertain speculation about where each might be headed. I hope that I can convince a few people that not all disease is harmful to forests.

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