Large Permanent Plots
Despite our ability to reconstruct or model forest dynamics there is no substitute for long-term data collected from permanently marked plots or mapped forests in which repeated observations and data have been collected for decades. The Harvard Forest is fortunate to have a number of such mapped areas and we have been adding to this research platform with additional areas of mapped and censused trees as important new questions have developed.
Major sites at Harvard Forest include:
Mixed deciduous forest: Mapped overstory plots (established 1990, remeasured 2003); Lyford Grid (established 1969, remeasured 1975, 1991, 2001)
Hemlock forest: Hemlock woodlot (established 1990, remeasured 1999); Mapped hemlock plots (established 1996, remeasured 2002)
Forests recovering from 1938 hurricane: Pisgah tract plots (established 1984, remeasured 1990, 1995, 2000); Hurricane recovery plots (established 1940, remeasured 1941, 1943, 1948, 1978, 1991)
Forest inventory plots: mapped plots across Harvard Forest's lands in Petersham (1937, resurveyed with additional measurements in 1992); another set of permanently marked inventory plots established in 1986-1992
Further description of permanent plots.
Publications:
Barker Plotkin, A. and D. Foster. In press. Sustaining long-term research through changing times at the Harvard Forest. In: Longterm silvicultural and ecological studies: harvesting results for science and management, Yale University.
Wilson, K. *. 2002. Lasting impacts of a catastrophic wind event: the 1938 Hurricane and thirty-two years of changing stand dynamics Harvard Forest, Petersham, MA. Senior Thesis, Middlebury College
Sipe, T. W. and F. A. Bazzaz. 2001. Shoot damage effects on regeneration of maples (Acer) across an understory-gap microenvironmental gradient. Journal of Ecology 89: 761-773
Motzkin, G., P. Wilson, D. R. Foster, and A. Allen. 1999. Vegetation patterns in heterogeneous landscapes: the importance of history and environment. Journal of Vegetation Science 10: 903-920
Mabry, C. and T. Korsgren. 1998. A permanent plot study of vegetation and vegetation-site factors fifty-three years following disturbance in central New England, U.S.A. Ecoscience 5: 232-240
Allen, A. 1995. Soil science and survey at Harvard Forest. Soil Survey Horizons 36: 133-142
Sipe, T. W. and F. A. Bazzaz. 1994. Gap partitioning among maples (Acer) in central New England: survival and growth. Ecology 76: 1587-1602
Sipe, T. W. and F. A. Bazzaz. 1994. Gap partitioning among maples (Acer) in Central New England: shoot architecture and photosynthesis. Ecology 75: 2318-2332
Wayne, P. M. and F. A. Bazzaz. 1993. Morning vs afternoon sun patches in experimental forest gaps: consequences of temporal incongruency of resources to birch regeneration. Oecologia 94: 235-243
Mills, A. V. 1993. Predicting forest growth and composition - a test of the JABOWA model using data from Earl Stephens' study in the Tom Swamp tract. Senior Thesis, Hampshire College
Stafford, R. 1992. Heterogeneity in forest structure, composition and dynamics following catastrophic wind disturbance in southwestern New Hampshire. MFS Thesis, Harvard
Foster, D. R., T. Zebryk, P. Schoonmaker, and A. Lezberg. 1992. Post-settlement history of human land-use and vegetation dynamics of a hemlock woodlot in central New England. Journal of Ecology 80: 773-786
Schoonmaker, P. 1991. Long-term vegetation dynamics in southwestern New Hampshire. PhD Thesis, Harvard
Sipe, T. 1990. Gap partitioning among maples (Acer) in the forests of central New England. PhD Thesis, Harvard
Foster, D. R. 1988. Disturbance history, community organization and vegetation dynamics of the old-growth Pisgah Forest, southwestern New Hampshire, U.S.A. Journal of Ecology 76: 105-134