You are here

November 2011

Printer-friendly version
November 1, 2011

3,000 Years of Ecosystem Change

Researchers analyze pollen and spores in lake-sediment core

A new paper published in Quaternary Research by Emerson College professor Wyatt Oswald and Harvard Forest director David Foster describes changes in climate and ecosystems in southern New England over the last 3,000 years. The researchers analyzed pollen and spores in a lake-sediment core from Little Pond in the town of Bolton, Massachusetts, and found evidence for three periods of

November 1, 2011

New Website for Conservation Innovation

The Harvard Forest Program on Conservation Innovation, directed by Jim Levitt, recently updated its website. In addition to publications and announcements, the new site hosts an extensive archive of the program's quarterly internet broadcasts on conservation finance.

November 1, 2011

Expanding Research on the Impacts of Deer and Moose

Using horses for scientific research at Simes

Four new pairs of deer and moose fence exclosures have been constructed in mature oak and hemlock stands at the Forest. These new undisturbed sites complement existing exclosures built in recently logged stands at Harvard Forest, on DCR Watershed Land, and in Northern CT. The study, led by Highstead ecologist Ed Faison and Steve DeStefano of the Mass. Cooperative Fish

November 1, 2011

Carbon Research in the New York Times

Last month, The New York Times published a cover story on climate change impacts to the nation's forest canopy. The long-term eddy-flux tower maintained at Harvard Forest by LTER PIs Steve Wofsy, Bill Munger, and REU students past and present, was featured in the article as one answer to the difficult task of carbon budgeting, "one of the

November 1, 2011

Integrating Science and Policy: Mercury

A new report on mercury pollution in the Great Lakes region, which involved collaboration from Harvard Forest Science and Policy Mercury report coverIntegration Director Kathy Fallon Lambert, was released last month to great interest from scientists, policymakers, and the media (more than 300 news articles were published). In late

November 1, 2011

Schoolyard Webcam Part of National Phenology Study

Schoolyard webcam

This year, a collaboration between Harvard faculty member Andrew Richardson and long-time HF Schoolyard Ecology Program teachers Kate Bennett and JoAnn Mossman led to the extension of a national effort to track forest phenology over time. Students at the Overlook Middle School in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, can now track seasonal budburst and leaf color change on a

November 1, 2011

The Future of Massachusetts Forests

A new paper by Jonathan Thompson, David Foster, and David Kittredge describes a simulation experiment designed to evaluate Development mapMassachusetts forest change over the next 50 years (2010–2060). The authors' objective was to estimate the relative influence of continued tree growth and succession, climate change, forest conversion to developed uses, and

November 1, 2011

Summer Students Publish Research

Former HF summer research students Megan Bartlett (REU '09), Cory Teshera-Sterne (REU '09 and '10), and Adam Young (REU '10) -- and 2010 REU student workingtheir Harvard faculty mentor Andrew Richardson – recently published 2 journal articles using their summer data. Megan's paper, published in Botany, can be read here. Cory