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September 1, 2011

New Ant Grant

Senior Ecologist Aaron Ellison and collaborators from the University of Vermont, University of Tennessee, and North Carolina State University have received a large grant from the National Science Foundation to study the adaptability of forest ants to climate change. Ants process forest soil, cycle nutrients, disperse seeds of many understory plants, and respond rapidly to changes in air temperature. In

September 1, 2011

Harvard Forest Weathers a Tropical Storm

Tropical Storm Irene shown from the weather station 2011

As Tropical Storm Irene moved through Petersham on August 28, our canopy cameras, meteorological station, and hydrological weirs captured the storm’s impact for our long-term records. Wind sensors recorded gusts at 16.4 m/sec (or 37 mph) and stream flow peaked at 598 liters/second. See a summary of the storm data here. The storm also gave us an opportunity to feature

September 1, 2011

Foster to Discuss the History and Future of New England’s Forests

On Wednesday, September 14, a lecture by HF Director David Foster will kick off a year of programming at the Harvard Museum of Natural History for their new exhibit on New England Forests. David’s lecture will draw on more than a century of research from the Harvard Forest about the challenges and choices we face in planning our forests’ future. The

September 1, 2011

Asian Longhorned Beetle Research in the News

Asian Longhorned Beetle causing damage to a sugar maple

A new paper by Harvard Forest ecologist David Orwig and USDA entomologist Kevin Dodds describes the beetle’s threat to closed-canopy forests across New England. Read press clips from the Boston GlobeNSF, and LTER, and see the full journal article, released August 29 in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research.

August 1, 2011

"Ghosts in the Forest" Bullard Exhibit on Display

Debby Kaspari, Harvard Forest’s first Bullard Fellow with a focus on art, has been engaged since March on a series of pastel drawings Debby Kaspari Chestnut Hemlock Harvard Forestshe’s calling “Ghosts in the Forest: an artist’s narrative of New England historical sites in various stages of reclamation by nature.” Field and archive work

August 1, 2011

Dissertation Research Featured in State Magazine

Haustoria

Unlike bedbugs and ticks whose nourishment comes from mammals, parasitic plants acquire mineral nutrients, sugar, and water by using cup-shaped root structures called haustoria to suck on the roots or stems of other plants. The most recent issue of Massachusetts Wildlife magazine features research by former University of Massachusetts Amherst and Harvard Forest graduate student and current HF post-doc, Sydne

August 1, 2011

New Harvard Forest Publication: Impacts of hemlock removal on arthropod communities

Another article in a series of papers describing findings from the Harvard Forest long term Hemlock Removal Experiment has been published in Ecosphere. In this paper, a group of researchers including Harvard Forest Senior Researcher Aaron Ellison, and post-docs Sydne Record and Ben Baiser, look at the effects of the hemlock woolly adelgid and pre-emptive salvage logging on communities of

August 1, 2011

Heating up the Forest: Video

This video is an online feature for our article recently published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, entitled: "Heating up the Forest: Open-top Chamber Manipulation of Arthropod Communities at Harvard and Duke Forests" by HF post-doc Shannon Pelini, Frank Bowles, HF senior ecologist Aaron Ellison, Nick Gotelli, Nate Sanders and Rob Dunn. The Warm Ants Hot

August 1, 2011

Cross boundary cooperation good for ecosystems

A new paper by Mark Rickenbach (University of Wisconsin Madison, and a recent Bullard Fellow), David Kittredge (HF Forest Policy analyst), Bill Labich (regional Conservationist, Highstead), and two others, outlines the reasons why cooperating on land management across boundaries is a superior way to conserve ecosystem services. Ecosystem patterns and processes don't start or stop at individual private property boundaries,

July 1, 2011

Ragweed Experiment Underway

Hoop house for ragweed experiment

A major component of a 3-year allergenic plant study--funded by the EPA and led by HF ecologists Kristina Stinson and David Foster, with UMass professor Christine Rogers--is in its final stages of build-out in the Harvard Forest experimental garden. A team of staff and summer students have contributed to the construction of 14 hoop houses, which will each house 1,248

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