Portal Plant Census and Florida Hurricanes

Twice each year we head out to the site to do an intensive week of field work. We catch rodents as we do every month, but we also count every plant located in the 384 different plant quadrats, located across the site (for those who want more details: 16 quadrats per plot, locations marked with rebar, each 0.25 m^2 in size). Plants have been counted on these quadrats for nearly 40 years and we have been keeping the tradition alive. These extended trips occur sometime in August/September and March/April to match up with when most plants during that season are flowering or setting seeds (or as best we can given the constraints of the school year). Since the lab moved to Florida, the August/September census has gained an added piece of excitement: hurricanes.

Hurricanes?

Yes. Hurricanes.

Last year, as the crew was preparing to set out for Arizona, Hurricane Hermine  was lining up to hit Florida. Being the lab’s first hurricane experience (and the first hurricane to hit Florida since 2005), there was a lot of anxiety as the crew packed up to head out. Would they get out ahead of the storm? What would happen while they were gone?

The storm was an exciting experience for those of us who remained in Gainesville (in the ‘uh, wow, look at all those trees down’ way, not the ‘Whoo, let’s do that again’ way). Hurricane Hermine skirted Gainesville, delivering strong winds, rain, and some downed trees.

Image from Wikimedia Commons. Image uses background image from NASA and hurricane tracking data from NOAA. The yellowish color were it hits land indicates it was a Category 1 at landfall. The star is the approximate location of the University of Florida

Though the Portal crew was out in Arizona, they did not escape without their own hurricane experience, though! Hurricane Newton hit Baja California and then came up to the Portal area for a visit.

Image from Wikimedia Commons. Image uses background image from NASA and hurricane tracking data from NOAA. The star is the approximate location of the Portal Project. The blue triangle indicates that Newton was a tropical depression by the time it got close to the site.

Despite my anxiety for the crew, they just got really wet.

Ellen and Joan enjoying a tropical storm in the desert

We laughed about it and then forgot about all this until a couple of weeks ago when Hurricane Irma lined up on Florida as the Portal Plant Crew was preparing to head out to Arizona to count plants.

Hurricane Irma track. Gainesville was luckier than other places that received visits from Irma. It was only a tropical storm when it came by. Image from NASA, track data from NOAA, obtained from Wikimedia Commons

Shawn Taylor, one of Ethan White’s graduate students and regular Portal Plant counter, remarked on his déjà vu feeling in a message to the lab:

“Interestingly this is exactly how leaving for the fall plant census was last year as Hurricane Hermine was bearing down”

Now, any good scientist knows that correlation does not mean causation. Our sample size is also very small, with only two incidences so far. I’ll just say that it’s an interesting coincidence that Florida gets hit with hurricanes when the Portal Plant crew heads to Arizona in September. No one should contact FEMA to have “keep the Portal plant crew in Florida” added to their disaster preparation list. But at the very least, we probably need to add some “in case of hurricane” items to our summer plant census check list for next year!