In August 2020, the CZU Lightning Complex fire burned through Big Basin Redwoods Sate Park near Santa Cruz, CA. Supported by NSF RAPID funding, as well as Save the Redwoods League, Andrew, Mariah, George Koch, Melissa Enright, and Drew Peltier have been studying the resprouting of trees following that massive disturbance, and measuring the age of remobilized carbon used to support resprouting using the MICADAS (MIni CArbon DAting System) in the ACE Lab here at NAU. With Drew as first author, our paper on this project, “Old reserves and ancient buds fuel regrowth of coast redwood after catastrophic fire,” has just been published in Nature Plants. Press releases from NAU and Save the Redwoods League both do a nice job explaining the story in a non-technical and accessible manner. There is also a great summary published by Science News. Don’t forget to check out the santracruz2 phenocam, which is tracking the recovery! And remember, the documentary produced by NAU-TV, Redwood Survival, will always be streaming on YouTube.
