All News & Highlights

Aaron Ellison retired from Harvard Forest in July 2021 after 20 years as Harvard's Senior Research Fellow in Ecology. From 2018 - 2021, he also served as the Deputy Director of the Harvard Forest.

In retirement, Ellison has continued to achieve high honors in ecology, in August 2021 accomplishing his career-long goal of publishing a Princeton Monograph in his

By Anna Christensen

A paper published this past summer in Tree Physiology finds that tree species of varying wood-porosity experience peak growth at different times of the year, exposing some species to more intense water shortages than others.

The wood-porosity of a tree refers to the structure of its vessels—pipelines within the trunk that carry sap throughout the tree.

Some trees such as

Update: Applications are now closed.

Harvard Forest is now accepting applications for its 2022 Summer Research Program in Ecology -- a paid, 11-week, immersive research internship for undergraduates from 2- and 4-year institutions in the U.S. and territories.

Applications are due by February 4, 2022.

• Explore past students' experiences in their own words on the program blog.

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that methane emissions in Boston are 6 times higher than previous estimates, and deeply undercounted in state calculations. 

The study, by Harvard Forest research collaborators Lucy Hutyra, Steve Wofsy and colleagues, used long-term methane data from Harvard Forest as a rural benchmark for analyzing Boston methane data.