The whole experiment, as giant pixel art

All 16 trees, all 9 researchers, and a summer of flooding — painted pixel by pixel into a single scene. The trees stand in their nursery pots with numbered plant labels, the team is busy measuring them, and the puddles mark the two flood treatments.

Pixel-art scene of the flooding experiment: 16 numbered potted trees in two rows at an outdoor nursery, with nine researchers measuring them using calipers, a portable photosynthesis console, a fluorometer, a height rod, a tripod instrument, clipboards, a leaf tray and a water dipstick. On the left the grass is dry, in the middle the pots stand in shallow 3-day puddles, and on the right they stand in deeper 10-day water. A wooden sign marks each plot; a city skyline, hedge, clouds and sun complete the scene. — Every tree from the study, numbered as on the trees page: back row 1–8, front row 9–16. Plant labels, flood puddles and instruments included. Made for this page, one pixel at a time (well — one script at a time).

Reading the scene: the left plot is the dry control, the middle puddles are the 3-day flood and the deeper water on the right is the 10-day flood — the three treatments of the experiment, marked by the wooden signs. In the real study every species had trees in every treatment; here the trees are grouped into plots so all sixteen fit in one picture.

Who is who

The nine authors of the paper each appear in the scene, kitted out with the instruments the team actually used. Match the shirt to the colour chip:

A. Fridell — leading the way and keeping the clipboard
H. Sjöman — measuring trunk diameter with calipers
J. Uddling — clamping a leaf into the portable photosynthesis console
J. Klingberg — holding the fluorometer against a leaf to read Fv/Fm
A. I. Gärdenäs — measuring tree height with the long rod
D. L. Labastida Jaimes — dipping a ruler into the 10-day flood to check the water level
I. Asplund — writing the measurements down
S. Benedet — collecting leaf samples on a tray and checking them with a magnifier
L. Tarvainen — in the lab coat, reading the instrument on the tripod

The 16 trees, in scene order

Back row, left to right

Norway maple
Silver maple
Silver birch
European hornbeam
Common hackberry
Goldenrain tree
Sweetgum (orange — it colours up early)
Tulip tree (yellowed and sparse after its flood)

Front row, left to right

Kobus magnolia
Black tupelo
Hop hornbeam (ragged — the most sensitive species)
Wild cherry (orange-tinged and thin)
Swedish whitebeam
Service tree of Fontainebleau
Wild service tree
Small-leaved lime

Fans of the trees page will notice a few cameos in the art: the sweetgum and wild cherry show autumn tinges, the badly hit tulip tree and hop hornbeam look sparse and yellowed, and there is a watering can minding the control trees.