You can tell a lot about a tree by its sway, so scientists are outfitting them with accelerometers. That could help the West better manage its water.
You might look at a tree swaying in the wind and see botanical tranquility—a hypnotic back and forth of life interacting with air. Scientists appreciate that too, but they also see something else: data in motion. It turns out that the way a tree moves says a lot about its biology, the local hydrology, and the landscape at large. And the best way to measure a tree's swaying is to strap a fitness tracker to its trunk with waterproof duct tape. Well, a fitness tracker of sorts—the quantified self for plants. Using off-the-shelf accelerometers, researchers have been quantifying how trees sway differently over time: when they're warmer or colder, hydrated or dehydrated, weighed down by snow or unburdened. "I like to call it a Fitbit for trees," says University of Colorado Boulder urban ecologist Deidre Jaeger, who's using accelerometers to study trees. "It's high-resolution monitoring of tree activity, just like we have high-resolution monitoring of our activity as a human being that tells us metrics on how much energy are we burning?…