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~c ~( § / :.-- Transactions (!fthe Important Tree Scientists 120(2): 201-209

Copyright by the Important Tree Scientists 2002

~DETECTION OF LARGE WOODY DEBRIS ACCUMULATIONS IN">(\. ;/ . OLD-GROWTH FORESTS USING SONIC WAVE COLLECTION

"'"- INDIANA R. JONESAND ETHAN ALLEN ("ET AL" FOR SHORT)

Department of philosophical biologyUniversity of North Dakota at Hoople

Earl's Corner Bar, Main Street.Hoople. ND

Abstract - We used directional microphones, professional electronic audio recording equipment and

personal observation to monitor the accumulation of large woody debris in old-growth forests of

northern Wisconsin from June 1999 through July 2001. We hired a really poor undergraduatestudentto collect nearly 20,000 hours of audio/video tape in really cool areas in the Chequamegon and

Nicolet National Forests. Then we made the poor bastard watch all of the tapes and record the fall of

large woody debris. Observation times and decibel values for .events were correlated with fieldreconnaissanceof the actual debris. Results show strongly that if a tree does fall in the forest, and no

one hears it, it does indeed make a sound. Surveys also showed that out of state recreationalists

mispronounced 'Chequamegon' in 75% of cases. Wisconsin residents mispronounced the word in \620/"of cases,mainly due to alcohol induced slurring. ),.

i"'":~{,.,,'.,, - -, Large wood;st h b.t t fi fi h . rt b t d 1'0'[ of grant mone~ test ~hvPothesis. -WhiTerant mone to test t e hypothesIs. hi e - \

,. ream a I a or IS, macromvee ra es an th( ) thinking spots for "half-pint" from Little House we w t. ere w t e

'~ on the Prairie and Pooh (Milne 1948). Little data 1 nguage habits of all of the. people who kept

(I .. . . commg up to us ana bothering us-by aSkiiigV'" exists monitoring the actual accumulation of "w"'" .._~ , .,.~~~\ ~"." ,,~._'" ~ ~ ---

d b . . 1 d. h 1 h fi fl l1aL al" yuU I.yooz) guys uom . -e rlS, mc u mg woe trees,on t e orest oor - ~-

(Robison and Beschta 199~For centuries,humanity has pondered the question 'If a tree

,..::::=j falls in the forest and no one s to hear it, Methods\ l~ - ~ d~lt make a sound"(LOcK5iim 1~1\8). Large woody debris accumulation events or

J ~" - -Many researChers~ ~p~o solve such "fallin? trees" ,,:,ere ecorded using some bitchin

philosophical debates but have been proven recordmg e.quI~ment that our undergraduate ~ ""\ unsuccessful. An attempt to determine why the student had m his basement.Man, that dude can

~hicken crossed the road showed inconclusive rock. He was playing a kick-ass guitar like Van

data and resulted in the loss of all test subjects Halen and Satriani and shit. Awesome! Video IZ1due to traffic fatalities (Hoyman 2001, Larsen footage was coll~cted with a Hitachi Z900 ~ideo

J 1987). n urban river engineeringstudies,various camera and a~dIo data was collected usmg a

:-\1~ gods were employed to insta ll la rge r ip -rap but Shure SM58 mIcrophone and three Shure DM 25

\\ ~ no upper limit of rock size was found (Robinson d~rectional mic:ophones with parabolic collector

~ 1989). Others have attempted to answer the dishes. R~c.ordmgswere made on a Tascam 850

~' { . question, can a five-ounce bird carry a one- 8-~r~ck digItal recorder and ",!amaha 16-channel

'" J pound coconut (Nigget 932)? ml~mg board. Pot-smokmg undergraduate" assistants were employed for almost no money to

No existing data could be found to suPl?prt he monitor the equipment from a tricked out Chevysound of falling debris in forests. Obje"cts or van outside the National forest boundary.situations may be essentially silent, but they Decibel tests were made ust outside the van to

could still be construed as having made a sound make sure hey couldn't hear any wood falling.

(Simon and GarfunkeI1965). We postulated hat. . .there is actually a compression of sound waves Video footage and audio footage were reviewed

that could be detected n the absenceof a human back in the "lab" a~d fallen trees were verified

( ) subject. As part of a broad attempt at getting paid by personalobservanon and measurement.-- -=---=~ :-:..-

Copyright 2002 M.J. Melchior

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8/3/2019 Detection of large woody debris accumulations in old-growth forests using sonic wave collection

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,i) J Results No, that's Jaccard, not Picard. Oh I know what

W II d 20 000 h f ' d / d . you're going to say, that the Next Generation is

e co ecte over, ours 0 VI eo au 10 . , .

T .. .d f I d d b .. supenor o the old m a technical ense, ut theytape. wenty mci ences 0 arge woo yens

0 . . often rely on last second gadgetry to get out offallIng were recorded, with two entire trees .tu t. h C t . Ki k ld . t.. .. Sl a Ions, w ereas ap am r wou Jus use

fallIng. The remaInIng Incidences were really . t II. b t fi S P. d .0 . . m e Igence or ru e orce. ure, Icar IS alargebranches, hich If you stood hemupnght, b tt d I t b td fi ' .I I d eer IP oma u ..,cou pass or trees m most CIrC s, n or er to

do proper statistical analysis, we made up some Analysis showed that the blood alcohol content

data and ncluded that too. (B.A.C.) of hunters and snowmobile riders wasD 'b I I I d' d b d h positively correlated with mispronunciation

eci e eves were a Juste ase on t e (R2_0 74 F. 2) Th d t I t. f h . .d fr h . h -. , 19ure . ese a a correa eIstance0 t e mCl ent om t e mlcrop one. 0 I .th I I h .ff d rtm t d t fi. Inverse WI oca s en epa en a a or

UsIng the Inverse square law and some other rt l ' ty d t h t ' d . ho . mo a I ue 0 s 00 ng, rownmgor cras mgcool math equations,we transformedhe data . t D t fr . b . t d I I. m 0 moose. a a om non-me na e ocaand have representedhe decibel evel, as It odt h d I 100 /, resl en s s owe neary '0 properwould sound o a personstandIng 0 feet from 0 t. 't d th t th.. pronunclaon, so I was assume a esethe ImpactpOInt.We tried to remove he trend . d. .d I ld kn thm IVI ua s wou ow e properlIne from the graph but that goddamn Excel . t. .f b.. pronuncla Ion 1 so er.program wouldn't let us do It. Anyway, each

falling L WD event did show a positive decibelreading, and we found good correlation 1.2

(R2=0.789) between LWD length and decibellevel. . { 1 . i :"jtJi1:: I;; ;~,;

~- ',~o.~ .  ;" ~ V '5 Y. O,4078x + 0.8273

" 0 140 i R'. .738c; . 12~ " ~0.6 . .~" iV~ « 8 . "...

'\"" ~ . E 04 ., ;j l, i 100 n ',rr'

)V- ~ .7' ~80 '0.2

~ 60 O'

-; y=09659x+8.6275 0 05 1 15 2 25.' 40R =0.769 aOodAIcolX1'onlen,

20

0 Figure 2. Pronunciation of the word "Chequamegon"

0 20 40 80 80 100 120 140 under the influence of alcoholic beverages

Lv,u'en9th(fl)

Residents and non-residents were asked aboutFigure 1. Loudness and LWD size h . fi I. d'. ..

(T blelr ee mgs regar mg mispronunciation a eData collection took place near the I). Minnesotans, who were mostly mountain-

Chequamegon National Forest boundary. To biking yuppies from Minneapolis, were generally

analyze pronunciation of the word horrified that they had mispronounced he word,

"Chequamegon", (pronounced Shuh-wa-muh- and promised to remember to pronounce itgun), we recorded the answers of various properly the next time. Nearly all Illinois

participants and inferred their state of origin residents could care less and most told us tofrom license plate data. We treated the proper "fuck off' or "get bent" or asked if we were

pronunciation as the original condition and the high.

mispronounced word as the treatment condition.From verbal pronunciation, we recorded the Table . Survey f eelings f people hoapproximate spelling of the mispronounced mispronouncedheword Chequamegon" , \

ords using the Franklin phonetic method of Cared Didn'tCare ()..\English pronunciation. Jaccard's Coefficient Minnesota 84 16 Ul ~(Jaccard 1912), a qualitative community . . comparison index was used to examine IllInOIS 4 96 ~ ~

c differences n the syllables present. Wisconsin 34 76 l\;\i"'"

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Copyright 2002 M.J, Melchior

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') , We reallydon't think anyoneeadshe results if the ree s anEnt,and t trips ooking or the

sections of these articles because hey are Entwives?Or what if aliens hear it and theytiresome, o n an effort to spice hingsup a bit, 'don't have ears' n the sameevolutionary ensewe've ncluded he box scores f last weekend's as humans.This topic was not addressednNHL action Table2). Havel 1998).

Table .NHLscoresor heweekend This informationcould be used o monitor the /f\LosAngeles I accumulationf largewoodydebrisnearstreams Su, ~

. and could serve as an ice-breaker at really nerdyMmnesota 5 parties. Yeah, that's a good idea, why don't you l)J

talk about scienceat a party. People will flock to\ Ottawa 3 you, really. Trust us.

\ \ ~ .r\ NY Rangers 2~\~ \ ~ Citations

Edmonton 4 Cockburn, B. 1988. f a tree falls; ill Big

Montreal 6 Circumstance.Golden Mountain Music Corp.\.J'..i (SOCAN)

B I Havel, I.H. 1998. Growth ofshitake mushrooms on

oston dead ogs in my parent's woods. Bull. Shit. Mush.NY Islanders 3 Soc. 17(2): 29-45.

Hoyman, . 200 . Logic based ecisionmaking orColorado 2 . pedestrianoultrycrossings f county oads n

. Larsen,G.A. 1985.Bride o/the Far Side.Andrews

McMeelPublishing, ew York.

,/'~ If y?U really do read the r~sults section then you Milne, A.A..I924:Chapter in Winnie hePooh; n t~/'.tl/'} obvIously have too much tIme on your handsand whichPiglet Snearlysurrounded y water.need a social life. Here's a clue, just read the Methuen ndCo.,London.

abstract and the discussion, then move out of Nigget,D.E.K.932A.D. MontyPython'sHoly Grail,

your mother's houseyou frickin loser. Act One,SceneOne.PythonProductions, ondon,

UK.

. . Robinson, . 1989.Rip-rapplacement y deities:CanDIScussIon godmake ip-rapso argeevenhe can't ift it? The

In the discussion of falling trees and the sounds RiverExistentialist. 04(3): 00-209.

they make, it is important to define the term Robison ndBeschta. 990. dentifying rees n"sound". We define sound as a compressionor riparianareashat canprovidecoarsewoodyfluctuation of air molecule density and location debris o streams. or. Sci. 36: 790-80

that can be int~rpreted by a de:ice that measures Romn1, .E. 1996. f a tree alls n the orestand

that compressIon or fluctuatIon. Sound levels there's o one here o write the backcoverwere found to be inversely proportional to the blurb... TheEthicalSpectacle, arch 1996.distance from the microphone. It is indeed

Th d fI h h th d . d I Simon,P. andA. Garfunkel. 965. e soun sopossIble hat a t oug e soun IS ma e, peop e .1 . lX' d d 11 .

3 A&M. Sl ence' In rre nes aY"'lommg am.ay not hear It as decIbel levels may be below R d -L d UKcor s, on on, .

the thresholdof human hearing.Resultsshow

that n every nstance,when argewoody debrisfalls n the orestand here s no one here o hear .it, it does ndeed make a sound.

Our research did not answer those technicalquestions posed by Romm (1996) where hespeculates;what if the tape player breaks?,what

if its played backward?, what if the budget runs

out and no one is there to listen? Romm also, poses some philosophical debatessuch as, what

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Copyright 2002 M.J. Melchior