Harvard Forest Research

Changes in inverebrate communities after clearing of non-native pines

Principal Investigator: Mark Mello
Lloyd Center for the Environment: May 01 2007 - Dec 31 2010:

Abstract:
Harvard forest plans to harvest about 40 acres of mature plantaion forests. Because most of these are comprised of non-native species, and because the sucessive early successional communities should be comprised of native species, wholesale changes in the insect communities are expected. The larger of the parcels are ideal for establishing a series of pitfall traps to document current inverebrate abundance on diversity within the forest floor community; aprticularly on the beetle fauna; and tracking changes paralleling the vegetational succession at these sites.
Light trap surveys within the largest of the parcels would track changes in the more mobile insects, particularly the Lepidoptera.
Only the 47 acre parcel #4 (TS30A) is sufficiently large in order to do a meaningful light trap survey within the harvest plots. Traps would be set in three locations: the center of the TS30A site, a similar plot with no management foreseen, and a “native” forest habitat that the harvested plot is likely to succeed to. A pitfall trap array would be set as three replicates in the aforementioned plots as well as in smaller plots in order to track speed of insect succession relative to size of plot as well as overall changes in diversity and abundance due to succession.
Plots will be tracked for three years, then data analyzed for subsequent frequency for long-term monitoring.: