When most people picture a construction crane, they often picture bustling cities and crowded skylines. Cranes are typically found in crowded cities hard at work on buildings or bridges.

Most of us would never associate a construction cranes with the “great outdoors,” but cranes are serving a purpose in nature in a very important way.

The construction crane has been assisting ecologists in recent months in various rainforests to discover more about the forest canopy.

The forest canopy is a vital part of the Earth’s environmental function. However, ecologists don’t know very much about them because the forest canopies are so hard to reach.

For years now, researching forest canopies has been done by ecologists in a very simple manner. Ecologists would climb ropes and attempt to reach as high as possible on the trees. Although ecologists could get up relatively far using this method, it did not allow them to cover a lot ground. This method of research gave them a very select sample and limited them to specific regions.

Many ecologists are starting to use cranes to discover forest canopies in Europe, Asia, South America, and several other places.

Currently, China is working to build several cranes in order to reach their forest canopies. These cranes are being built to provide ecologists with access to the tops of forest canopies to obtain research that they have not yet been able to conduct.

The crane makes it much easier for ecologists to conduct experiments within the tree tops. With the moveable arm attached to the crane, they are able to reach up to 2 hectares of forest.

Cranes are used for so much more than construction. They are being used to protect our environment and provide ecologists with the answers they need in order to understand a vital part of our planet.

For more crane news, visit Astro Crane’s blog.