When Nalini Nadkarni climbs to the top of a forest, she doesn't just see the trees.

She sees birds, insects, hanging animals, human impact and plants, including trees. She sees a beautiful, complex and strong — yet fragile — tapestry.

"There are many elements woven together into what I think of as the tapestry of the forest," said Nadkarni, director of the University of Utah's new Center for Science and Mathematics Education. She said it's a tapestry the world would do well not to forget.

On Sunday, Nadkarni, a scientist known for her research on the lofty canopies of tropical and temperate forests in Costa Rica and Washington, spoke about her work, both studying canopies and trying to educate others about their importance, at a Forum for Questioning Minds free event at the Salt Lake Main Library.

She spoke about her childhood spent climbing trees in Maryland, unaware that it would eventually become her life's work.

She showed video clips of what she does — footage of the petite 58-year-old woman pulling herself to the tops of towering trees using mountain climbing gear.

And she spoke about the particular importance of epiphytes, plants that grow on other plants, in these forests, often resembling a sort of green carpet covering trees.

Epiphytes are small in mass compared with the sweeping scale of the forests themselves, but they fulfill an important role, she said. They absorb and retain nutrients that can help support trees and animals. "These plants are in some ways keystone elements to the forest," she said.

It's just one example of the complexity of forest canopies — areas that years ago weren't typically studied by scientists but now are yielding an ever-growing stream of important information.

Nadkarni noted that tropical forests produce more oxygen than forests here and have led to prescription drug discoveries. But deforestation, mining and climate change, among other things, threaten that.

"The canopy is connected to forests and forests are connected to agricultural land and that's connected to the next country over and that's connected to us," Nadkarni said. "If you want to breathe here, you better be concerned about Costa Rica."

It's that interconnectedness that has led Nadkarni to spend much of her time trying to educate others about the importance of forest canopies. She's published more than 90 scientific articles and four books, and her work has been highlighted in a number of popular magazines, ranging from Natural History to Playboy. She's invited artists and musicians to accompany her to forest canopies to create art to help spread the message. She's given sermons at houses of worship on the topic and enlisted prison inmates to help her, both to further conservation efforts and inspire them. She even created a Tree Top Barbie, clad in canopy work gear, in hopes of interesting young girls.

Nadkarni's talk Sunday at the Forum for Questioning Minds event was just one more extension of that mission to educate — and the message got across.

"I liked the fact that she looks at the forest as an entity that is interwoven with just about everything in nature, and we're all part of it," said Sue Skordos, a Questioning Minds board member who attended the event. "We're all part of this same system."

Questioning Minds hosts talks by more than a dozen speakers a year in hopes of bringing academia to the general public. The group has hosted speakers who have talked about everything from feminine theology to fractals, said Rebecca Richard, president of the group.

"If we're informing the public with these people and with ideas," Richard said, "they're more likely to become active participants in change."

Salt Lake City retirees Sylvia and Bill Gray are not members of the Questioning Minds group, but they decided to attend the talk Sunday just to learn more.

"We care about the environment and are very concerned about global climate change," Sylvia Gray said. "This outreach to the general public is so needed."

lschencker@sltrib.com

Twitter: @lschencker