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Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez: Urban forest explorations
119 Plays9 months ago
Urban ecologist Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez in conversation with Catherine Polcz.
He shares his journey from researching plant physiology in the Mexican Veracruz Montane Forests to future-proofing diverse urban forests of Western Sydney. His work is driven by understanding our relationship to the urban environment where people and plants are reliant on one another.
Bio:
Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez is a Sydney-based, Mexican ecologist who studies the effects of climate on plant function in urban ecosystems. He completed his PhD in Eastern Mexico assessing the vulnerability of the lush Veracruz cloud forest to climate change. In 2015 he joined Macquarie University with a project identifying climate refugia and plant migration corridors in Australia. In 2017 he joined the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at Western Sydney University where he continues his research on urban forests.
This episode is produced by Catherine Polcz with music by Carl Didur.
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Transcript
Introduction to Plant Kingdom
00:00:09
Speaker
I'm Katherine Poults and this is Plant Kingdom. I'm recording in beautiful Sydney on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and pay respect to their elders past, present, and future. Plant Kingdom is a conversation series about plants, nature, and environment featuring scientists, artists, researchers, writers, and healers. We release two conversations each month and hear from people who have an intimacy with plants and nature.
00:00:38
Speaker
We discuss their work, stories, and reflections from the field.
Meet Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez
00:00:42
Speaker
Today's conversation is with urban ecologist Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez. Manuel is a Sydney-based Mexican ecologist who studies the effects of climate-owned plant function in urban ecosystems. He completed his PhD in Eastern Mexico, assessing the vulnerability of the lush, fair cruise cloud forest to climate change.
00:01:01
Speaker
In 2015, he joined Macquarie University with a project identifying climate refugia and plant migration corridors in Australia. In 2017, he joined the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at Western Sydney University, where he continues his research on urban forests. The interconnected relationship between communities and the environment is at the centre of his work, which we will talk about today. Here's our conversation.
What is an Urban Forest?
00:01:35
Speaker
So your research into urban forests started in Mexico City, but it's been your focus since you came to Sydney. What defines an urban forest that's not two terms you would automatically put together? Yes, yes. It's all the vegetation that you can find in the city, like street trees, parks, green walls, green roofs, yeah, everything, and cemeteries, botanic gardens, everything that has vegetation within a city.
00:02:03
Speaker
So it's a lot. Cemeteries are so interesting. I remember reading studies about the biodiversity of cemeteries and how often you mowed them because they weren't ones that weren't maintained so well were actually really biodiverse important. And in Australia, there's another thing that it's very unique for at least from Sydney, I guess, or I don't know if it's Australia, but the golf, how do you say people go and play golf?
00:02:29
Speaker
A golf course. Yes, yeah, that's a huge, provides a lot of abundance of green vegetation because there are so many within Sydney, right? They represent a massive part of the green cover in the city. Amazing. Never been myself. Me neither. So the main thing that finds the urban forest is the people.
Challenges of Urban Forests
00:02:53
Speaker
The urban forest is enmeshed in society. In urban forest,
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah it's all about how this interacts with people because i can say this tree is doing amazing this tree will survive this tree will persist fifty years or whatever but what if it's not a suitable tree for the city what if it has to the cliffs are too small so there is no shame.
00:03:18
Speaker
or what if I said this species is amazing but people don't like it and they say no we don't want this tree you know maybe it's an introduced exotic species and they say no we don't want those or I say oh this is a beautiful tree but it drops too many leaves and people just don't like it so those are the complexities about working in urban forest that I did not expect it but it cannot be ruled out and yeah it has to be part of the
00:03:47
Speaker
of all the research that I do, consider how it will affect people and how they will receive it. Interesting. And people care for the forest too, right? It's interesting just inserting people into nature and ecology different than kind of traditional ecology and nature happens out there, work away from us.
Benefits of Urban Forests
00:04:11
Speaker
What kind of benefits do communities get from urban forest?
00:04:16
Speaker
Well, there are so many. I think that the most obvious one is like, I think anyone that has walked into a park, they can feel the cooling that the trees provide, you know, like the heat mitigation. I also think that a lot of people after the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of people came to truly appreciate the value of the green space for improvement of mental and physical health.
00:04:41
Speaker
you know, coping with that stressful situation, how people really rely on urban forest for social integration, you know, connections to nature. And then there is also, for example, reducing the energy uses. If you have a tree that is providing shade to the house, then maybe you don't need to turn the aircon on longer or there's also the benefit of they can increase the property prices.
00:05:05
Speaker
It's interesting how properties in green suburbs are more expensive or can be more expensive than suburbs that have less green cover. There are so many mitigations of air pollution, even the noise. You can see if you have a green barrier between you and a big avenue, you have that mitigation of noise.
00:05:28
Speaker
habitat for other species, food for other species. So yeah, it's amazing how many things we get from them.
Climate Resilience in Urban Forestry
00:05:38
Speaker
And being in the city or urban environments, what kind of stressors are the plants having to deal with? Oh well, one, people. Interactions with people.
00:05:51
Speaker
Any interaction, it doesn't have to be a negative interaction, but people passing, moving them, cars, they have a very limited soil volume, limited nutrients, water is limited. Yeah, the amount of light that they receive, if they are between or among buildings, they don't receive enough light. Urban heat island, it's hotter in places where it's highly urbanized.
00:06:21
Speaker
So yeah, I think that that was all the main challenges, the true space. Yeah, and he is something I wanted to talk to you about. We're talking today, you know, we're in Sydney, you've done a lot of work in Western Sydney, Western Sydney being a major bustling and diverse part of the city, also well known in Australia for being very, very hot.
00:06:44
Speaker
I think in 10% of the summer days are over 35 degrees. 5% of the days are over 37.8 degrees. It's just going to get hotter. But tell us, what's the urban forest like in Western Sydney and some of the areas you were working in? Well, some areas, the urban forest is quite big and quite healthy, I think. I work a lot in Penrith, and they have a massive urban forest because Penrith is really big.
00:07:14
Speaker
and they have maybe not fully urban areas, maybe some urban areas that have a lot of natural forest cover. So that increases the amount of green cover that the city has. For example, Parramatta, especially Parramatta city, it has a lot of trees, but again, these trees are confined in small spaces. A lot of people
00:07:41
Speaker
A lot of construction is happening in Parramatta, so I have seen trees that have gone to build the tram, big trees. I mean, that kind of infrastructure, of course, is going to bring people, jobs, opportunities, but of course, they are going to need to remove a lot of green copper and replace it with pavement and gray surfaces that, yeah, it's going to change the environment.
00:08:08
Speaker
It's good that we are growing, but yeah, we need to keep in mind that we need to make Western Sydney liveable. If it's too hot, don't go out. That is not healthy. So we need to think how we can make Western Sydney big, healthy and sustainable. And is there
00:08:29
Speaker
A lot of these urban forests were planted at different times, not with climate resilience and adaptation in mind. Are people looking at how to adapt the forest and what kinds of trees we should be planting, or is there an effort to plant more trees?
00:08:47
Speaker
There is the effort of planting more trees, which is good. So yeah, that has been the trend for a long time. But I think that now, councils are becoming very, very aware of climate change and how they need to
00:09:02
Speaker
to transform the urban forest. They cannot keep making the same decisions that they were making because the plant choices that they were making were based on the past, what was working in the past, what was being produced to think about new species, new varieties. And I think that the councils are very aware of that. And are native trees better or not necessarily? What kinds of trees do you think you should be planting?
00:09:31
Speaker
Maybe not to say native exotics. I think that some natives are very good. Some are not that good. Same with exotics. Some exotics are very good and adapting. Some others are not. I think that what we need is to find the balance between natives and exotics and just have a lot of species because we cannot rely on a few species like it has been done in the past. We see it in all the major cities in Australia.
00:10:01
Speaker
But a very few species are comprising the urban forest. So we have five or six species that are represented 60 or 70 percent of all the trees. So we cannot rely on that. So we need to find those species. It's not just one or two. We need to find a lot of species that are suitable for climate change.
00:10:24
Speaker
You want a biodiverse urban forest, right? There's going to be other stressors beside climate change that they're all dealing with or other diseases. And as someone that's looking at trees a lot, do you have any favorite street trees?
Impact of Fires on Urban Research
00:10:40
Speaker
I like natives. I like the flame tree. I really like that tree. I like the big leaves, the prickly green leaves. And when it goes all red, I think that it looks amazing. I like banksias as well. I know that they don't do very well with climate change. I know that they are very sensitive. And then the exotics. I like the liquid number. I like the jacarandas. Jacarandas are very popular, but when you
00:11:06
Speaker
Don't leave me there. Yeah. Cleaning Jackarandas off your, your windshield, but very beautiful. Um, great choices. I wanted to talk a bit more about Black Summer too. Black Summer being, you know, the catastrophic period of 2019, 2020 with the horrendous fires and smoke pollution across Australia that we really felt since the need to also extreme heat and drought during that time. What was, what was Black Summer like for you? You were also doing fieldwork during this time.
00:11:36
Speaker
I, by then I had had a few summers in Australia, so I knew that it was hot here. But yeah, those, I remember those two summers were just unbelievable hot. And yeah, I was actually measuring trees in the field, in the cities. You know, I remember doing in Penrith actually, collecting data in that summer. So yeah, that was very intense. And the whole experience of the Black Summer, it was very shocking for me because I had never experienced fires.
00:12:05
Speaker
in Mexico there are wildfires but it was never like that you know and I remember yeah being very shocked being feeling very um depressed it was like a like like the end of the war right people were in mass so yeah it was a very shocking experience and I think that
00:12:23
Speaker
we will see more of that and we have seen it in like Canada just went through that in Greece now so these events are just going to get more frequent and I think that when we experience I'm going to talk very general but when we experience these kind of events that are very traumatizing
00:12:42
Speaker
the way that people cope with that is to normalize them. So we will say, oh, yeah, it happened in 2019. Yeah, it will happen again. And so that's the way to cope, to make less traumatizing. But then there is also the risk that we can say, oh, it happens. So what's the big deal? There's nothing to do. So we need to be careful just not to fall into that trap to say, oh, yeah, fires. Yeah, it's something that happens in Australia. There's nothing we can do.
00:13:11
Speaker
Yeah, and so that's why I'm so concerned about all these things happen so much that people just can get used to that and then do nothing about it. Yeah, it's very shocking. In Penrith, where you're working on the 4th of January, it was the hottest place on Earth. You can't normalize that. Yes, let's wait to see how the summer goes.
00:13:36
Speaker
Like, you study climate change every day. Did Black Summer kind of make you think about it a bit differently, or did it hit home in a different way? Well, yeah, because it was my first fire experience. And yeah, it was like, this is so real. This is all the loss that we went through. Yeah, it was definitely
00:14:02
Speaker
a moment when I thought, oh yeah, climate change is here. And I think that a lot of people felt that it is real. It's not something that will happen in 2050 or 2030. It is here. And it's awful. And when you were doing fieldwork at this time, were you studying crown dieback?
Urban Forests and Biodiversity
00:14:24
Speaker
Were you studying and capturing trees dying?
00:14:28
Speaker
Yes, we were measuring how trees were coping with this high temperature, so we were measuring dieback, how trees were transpiring water or just stopped transpiring water. I had an experiment in Western Sydney in Richmond, which is also very hot, it's very close to Madrid, and I was actually measuring how trees were
00:14:51
Speaker
transpiring during the day, when they were just shutting down because it was just too hot and they just couldn't deal with that and how they were recovering. The trees were fine before a heat wave, for example, and I could see how the trees were burning, well, not burning, literally, but they would just die back in the wilderness of the leaves during the heat wave and the trees were just losing leaves and thinking, oh, would they be able to recover?
00:15:18
Speaker
And you told us a bit already about how you're working with councils and helping them make science-based plant choices for resilience in the future. But how, how important is the urban environment to conservation and to biodiversity in the future? Well, it's very important, yeah, because, and it's not just because of the trees or the plants itself, it's also about all the biodiversity that they support, all the birds and mammals and insects, all that it's
00:15:48
Speaker
huge what the urban forest do to support other species. And also, we can see species that are threatened in the natural environments. We can see trees, for example, that are vulnerable in the natural environments, but we can keep them in cities. And that represents conservation for all those species. So yeah, regarding the value of diversity, I think the urban forest can play a very important role.
00:16:15
Speaker
in preserving other species and plants as well. And what's walking down the street like for
Changing Perspectives on Urban Greenery
00:16:24
Speaker
you? Are you looking at all the trees?
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah, it has completely changed the way I see a city completely. When I am in other cities, not even in Australia, but overseas holidays, I'm looking at the trees and I'm thinking, oh, this doesn't look very healthy. And all these fishes, we have these fishes also in Australia, right? Or I like to go into parks and see how
00:16:46
Speaker
the design of the parks, how people are, something that I didn't do before this project. But now when I go on holidays to any city, I want to go to the Botanic Gardens and I can spend the whole day in the gardens and mesh in the greenery. So yeah, it has definitely changed the way that I see and that I explore the city and the way that I interact with the city.
00:17:13
Speaker
I love that you see, you see the city for the trees. Yes. And you talked a bit about, you know, COVID and how during the lockdowns, the importance of local parks really became central, you know, to our mental wellbeing and to having purpose and outings and exercise.
Manuel's Journey into Ecology
00:17:32
Speaker
Did you have a daily outing or ritual or place that, that you went
00:17:39
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yes, yes, I have my walks to the park. Yeah, I was naughty. Sometimes I went out two times per day. Beyond 5K? Yeah. Well, because I moved in this summer during COVID, I'm very lucky that I have big parks. We're near. So even the Botanic Gardens are just 20 minutes away.
00:18:04
Speaker
So I could just walk to the botanic gardens and just be there for an hour and come back. So yeah, I really made use of octogreen spaces here and I just couldn't wait for that time. I was just looking forward to that hour just to go out and pretend that everything was fine. Where do you think your affinity for ecology came from?
00:18:29
Speaker
So since I was a very young child, I remember that I love animals. So that was my passion about that. That's the connection that I have with nature. I remember my mom and taking me to the zoo and seeing the animals, reading about animals and learning about animals. I thought I want to do something with animals and I started studying the bachelor in biology. That bachelor, I think I opened my eyes to a
00:18:53
Speaker
bigger world, it was not just about animals or not just about plants because in my head I had that idea, it's animals or plants and it was nothing like that. I learned about fungus and about paleontology and yes, soils, things that I didn't even consider, ecology and environment.
00:19:14
Speaker
So yeah, and then I met very good professors that they were very good mentors and they guide me into different paths. A very good mentor, she guided me in my final dissertations in my bachelor degree. And I worked with her in deserts, you know, understanding how plants interact with fungus to survive in deserts. And I really liked it. So that really pushed me out of the animals. And I thought, okay, there is much more in this world
00:19:43
Speaker
So then after the desert research, you did another project with the Guadalupe fur seals on the San Benito archipelago. Can you tell us about that research? So I decided to do my master's degree going back to postgraduate school.
00:20:01
Speaker
And I was obsessed with marine mammals. I don't know why, but I really wanted to work with marine mammals. And I met my supervisor back in that day. He had this amazing project working with four seals. That was very, very attractive because it was all about reproduction of the seals. So I would have to work with the little pups. That was the project. So I said, yes, I'm going to do it.
00:20:27
Speaker
In theory, it was very attractive, but in practicality, it was very challenging because I have to travel a long way to the island where the seals were. It was a very isolated place. I had to stay in the island for a month with no electricity, bringing my own food because obviously nothing was near. It was a fishermen colony, but people do not live there in the summer, just in the winter.
00:20:56
Speaker
The island was empty. I only could see some fishermen once per week. Basically, they were just checking to see if I was still alive. And it was like literally waking up with the sun and going to spend time with the animals. And then when it was getting dark, go back day after day.
00:21:19
Speaker
The part of the animals was very rewarding because at the beginning they were so afraid of me. But then the day passed and they just really got used to me and they were just playing around. So yeah, it was a very cool experience. And I got to capture them, to weigh them, to measure them. So yeah, that was a very, very cool experience. But then, when the month was about to end, I thought, okay, I can't do this anymore. I'm going to go crazy.
00:21:48
Speaker
So I came back and I knew that I didn't want to do anymore. I thought that, yeah, it was not just good for me. So I came back and I thought, okay, I need to keep doing, I need to do my PhD.
Studying Climate Change in Mexico
00:22:05
Speaker
So I thought, okay, now I'm going to move to climate change. I wasn't sure what about climate change. I knew that I wanted to do something about the impact on ecosystems in Mexico, but I wasn't quite sure about what. And I met my PhD supervisor, who was my PhD supervisor, and he said, okay, I like your enthusiasm. I like your ideas.
00:22:31
Speaker
This is what I can offer you. I'm working in this place in Barracruz, in Mexico, in the cloud forest. I do this research about eco-physiology, plant eco-physiology. So if you're interested, we can do something together. And I said, yes, I want to do something together. So I started working with trees. And of course, it felt like I was starting from zero because also I studied that in my bachelor.
00:22:56
Speaker
I wasn't paying too much attention because I wanted to work with animals, right? Yeah, it was like, yeah, plants, yes, plants or whatever. But, you know, that now was a PhD, so I had to be serious about it. So, yeah, it was like a lot of hard work because it felt like I was learning everything for the first time, really fully understanding.
00:23:13
Speaker
But it was a very good experience. I really loved working in this forest in Mexico. Beautiful area, beautiful trees, massive trees. Such an interesting place, beautiful. And thinking about how climate change can so easily destroy such a beautiful place like that one.
00:23:34
Speaker
Something that I read that I didn't know before was how biodiverse Mexico is. It's 10 to 12% of the world's biodiversity can be found in Mexico. And you were working in one of the most species rich areas. What kind of, you spoke about how big the trees are. What kind of species are there? What kind of encounters did you have there? Well, it's a very rich region. You know, you can have
00:24:02
Speaker
hundreds of thousands of species. So the trees are massive and you can find very, very big trees and it's a very complex ecosystem regarding the strata levels because you have the big trees and the small trees, you have all the growing weeds and the pivots and you have the tree ferns that are also massive and
00:24:26
Speaker
That's all the plans if you go into the insects and animals and all that it's very complex. I do like working with trees because it feels more real. I don't know how to explain it like the tree, right? It's also easier than working with shrubs, for example.
00:24:46
Speaker
You can get more information. It is very impressive because there is so much vegetation, there is so much humidity. They call it cloud forest because it seems like it's always clouded.
Reflections on Professional Journey
00:24:59
Speaker
You've been working with plants and nature professionally as a scientist for years and years now. Do you think your relationship to plants or nature has evolved over time or changed?
00:25:13
Speaker
Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. I don't see plants in the same way that I did before it was animals. I love animals and plants. Oh, yeah. It's something that we eat. Yeah. Today I see the plants sustaining everything that we have.
00:25:27
Speaker
I really have come to appreciate all the green. And today I really love urban trees, urban forest. It's something that I really appreciate. I never expected that I was going to be working in urban forest, with urban forest, but I really enjoy it.
00:25:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think that that's definitely something that I have evolved through time, not that conscious evolution. It's something that life has pushed me in different ways and by meeting different people. But yeah, definitely have a very different view of nature and everything today.
Conclusion and Farewell
00:26:14
Speaker
That was my conversation earlier this year with Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez. Thank you for listening and a huge thank you to Manuel for sharing his work. Plant Kingdom is hosted by me, Catherine Polz. We have production support by Max Merch and our music is by Carl Dider. Listen to us wherever you get your podcasts and check out our website and show notes at plantkingdom.earth.
00:27:01
Speaker
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