Brian Richard Hall
Harvard Forest
324 N. Main Street, Petersham, MA 01366
(978) 724-3302 x254
brhall@fas.harvard.edu
Research Interests
I do most of the Geographic Information System (GIS), or computerized mapping, work at the Harvard Forest. This allows me to be involved with a wide variety of research projects including forest conservation, community ecology, paleoecology, and forest history although I am primarily interested in the effects of historic landuse on modern ecosystems. Most of southern New England was cleared by the middle of the 19th century for pastures, hay meadows, and cultivated fields. Towards the end of the 1800's, New England's farmers began to abandon their fields as better farmland was opened up in the midwestern United States and new industries created alternate occupations. This abandonment resulted in a rather rapid reforestation of the old fields- although the new forests differed in both structure (size and shape of trees) and species composition from the pre-clearance forests. This disturbance and its long-term effects must be appreciated more fully in order to understand and manage our regions forests, grasslands, and heathlands.
Education
State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY 1998
M.S., Environmental and Forest Biology, study option in Plant Ecology
Thesis: Environment-Plant Species Relationships in Groundwater Seeps in the Catskill Mountains of New York
SUNY Plattsburgh, Plattsburgh, NY 1994
B.S., Environmental Science
Research Project: Vegetation sampling of fire-structured pine barrens in upstate New York
Mohegan Community College, Norwich, CT 1991
Associates Degree in Liberal Arts and Science
Related Employement
Research Assistant, Harvard University-Harvard Forest, Oct 1997 - current
- Research historic influences on modern forest composition in New England forests
- Currently working on detailed landscape pattern analysis of 1830 forest cover of Massachusetts
- Planning, analysing, and figure generation of GIS-based work for numerous projects at Harvard Forest
Burn Crew Member, Albany Pine Bush, Spring Burn Season 1995
- Held various positions in prescription burn
Field Research Technician, Applied Environmental Science Program, SUNY Plattsburgh, June - Dec. 1994
- Assisted professors and students with research projects and coursework in forest ecology, fire ecology, hydrology and environmental geology
Undergraduate Research Assistant, SUNY Plattsburgh, Summer 1993
- Prepared and sampled 57 vegetation plots in fire-influenced ecosystems, including pitch pine and jack pine barrens, in Clinton County, NY
Publications
Foster, D. R., G. Motzkin, J. O'Keefe, E. Boose, D. Orwig, J. Fuller, and B. Hall. 2004. The environmental and human history of New England. In: pp. 43-100 (D. R. Foster and J. Aber, Eds.), Forests in Time: The Environmental Consequences of 1,000 Years of Change in New England. New Haven:Yale University Press.
Eberhardt, R.W., Foster, D.R., Motzkin, G., & Hall, B. 2003. Conservation of changing landscapes: vegetation and land-use history of Cape Cod National Seashore. Ecological Applications 13: 68-84.
Hall, B., Motzkin, G., Foster, D., Syfert, M., and Burk, J. 2002. Three hundred years of forest and land-use change in Massachusetts, USA. Journal of Biogeography 29: 1319-1335.
Foster, D.R., Clayden, S., Orwig, D.A., Hall, B., Barry, S.L. 2002. Oak, chestnut and fire: Climatic and cultural controls of long-term forest dynamics in New England, USA. Journal of Biogeography 29: 1359-1379.
Foster, D.R., Hall, B., Barry, S.L., Clayden, S., Parshall, T. 2002. Cultural, environmental, and historical controls of vegetation patterns and the modern conservation setting on the island of Martha's Vineyard. Journal of Biogeography 29: 1381-1400.
Motzkin, G., Eberhardt, R.W., Hall, B., Foster, D.R., Harrod, J., MacDonald, D. 2002. Vegetation variation across Cape Cod, Massachusetts: environmental and historical determinants. Journal of Biogeography 29: 1439-1454.
Boose, E. R., Foster, D.R., Barker Plotkin, A., and Hall, B. 2002. Geographical and historical variation in hurricanes across the Yucatan Peninsula. In Lowland Maya Area: Three Millennia at the Human-Wildland Interface. A. Gómez-Pompa, M. F. Allen, S. Fedick and J. J. Jiménez-Osornio, eds. Haworth Press, New York, NY.
Hall, B.R., Raynal, D.J., and Leopold, D.J. 2001. Environmental influences on plant species composition in ground-water seeps in the Catskill Mountains of New York. Wetlands 21: 125-134.
Hall, B.R. 1998. Environment-plant species relationships in groundwater seetps in the Catskill Mountains of New York. Master's Degree Thesis. State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. 85p.