The College of Wooster Tree Ring Lab faculty, staff and students have teamed up to publish results of  an analysis of a network of tree-ring sites in Northeast Ohio to ask the question what is driving the changing climate response of the trees. The tree-ring sites include young (100-year-old) white oaks in Secrest Arboretum, Wooster, two sites of post-settlement age (about 200-years old) from Wooster Memorial Park and The Kinney Field Park both in Wooster and four old growth sites (>300 years old) from some of our favorite sites including The College of Wooster campus, Cornerstone Elementary, Browns Lake Bog, David Kline’s (the author) old growth forest on his farm and Johnson Woods the largest tract to old growth white oak forest in Ohio.

The upshot of the study reveals that the one- hundred-year-old white oak stand in Secrest Arboretum, along with two second growth stands have consistently responded positively to summer (June-July) precipitation over the past century, whereas the four nearby old growth sites have lost their moisture sensitivity since about the mid 1970s. This “fading drought signal,” which has been previously reported by Maxwell et al. (2016), appears to be more a result of the legacy of land use

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Wooster Memorial Park has been a great resource for The College of Wooster Earth Sciences (ESCI), Biology among others. Here the ESCI course in Paleoclimate, under permit from the Friends of Wooster Memorial Park, sampled 20 second growth Eastern Hemlock with the aim of determining the climate response of the species in the Park. A recent publication by the Wooster Tree Ring Lab incorporated results from past sampling in the park that was concerned with the changing climate response of white oak trees. This oak study can be found here Wiles et al., 2025.
Lidar Map of Wooster Memorial Park – the green field in the west of the park is the approximate location of tree-ring sampling.
 

The class took advantage of a spectacular day for the sampling.

Nick demonstrating the coring technique using an increment borer.

Another perfect core, once trained, the five groups went into sampling mode.

For most of the group, this was their first experience coring and it was clear some were naturals at the technique.

First-ever core reveal photo – a proud dendrochronologist.

Another first.

Coring for the first time.

Coring and at the same time keeping a sharp eye out for wildlife.

A first – ever core safely archived in a reusable plastic straw.

Even

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The Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church was established in 1849 and is Ohio’s first Black church and the only surviving antebellum Black church in the state of Ohio. The building is now being restored under the direction of Hardlines Design, Columbus Ohio. The Wooster Tree Ring Lab was contacted to help in the dating of the timbers in the church’s structure.

Charles Linthicum, Macedonia Trustee and Charissa Durst standing in front of the church in the summer of 2023 before the renovation began.

A scene also prior to renovation showing the interior of the church. The structure was moved and rebuild likely in the late 1800s so tree-ring dates on the timber may help to distinguish the portions of the structure that were original.

Renovation underway in February of 2025.

Nick Wiesenberg made a trip in February to the site to core the now-exposed beams during the renovation. Here Nick is sampling flood joists made from white Oak.

Nick points out the waney edge of this timber – the waney edge is the outer ring (bark year) and once assigned a calendar age indicates the calendar year the tree was cut.

Straps keep the walls of the church in tact as the restoration proceeds.

A historical marker and sign

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In addition to the summer work described by Lilly Hinkley and Tyrell Cooper, the Wooster Tree Ring Lab is collaborating projects with (1) The Tree Ring Lab of the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz, Germany. This work is part of a project called Monostar (Modelling Non-Stationary Tree growth Responses to global warming) and (2) The University of Alaska – Fairbanks funded by the National Science Foundation, which involves developing long tree-ring records from along the Gulf of Alaska. This post describes some of the sampling aspects of these projects this past summer.
First MONOSTAR sampling: We started in Juneau – here (below, left to right) is Nick Wiesenberg (Wooster), Philipp Romer (Mainz), and Davide Frigo (University of Padova, Italy).

The first tree-ring site was above the Mendenhall Glacier at the East Glacier Site. MONOSTAR sampling is being done across the Northern Hemisphere to determine the whys, hows, wheres and whens of changing tree growth with changing climate. The trees in the background are mountain hemlock with a few Sitka spruce. This is close to a yellow cedar site that we sampled some years ago.

Philipp and Davide with Mendenhall Glacier in the background. 
The next stop was Glacier Bay where we flew to Gustavus. The

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