Audrey Barker Plotkin, Aaron Ellison, David Foster

Harvard Forest

Primary interests:

Coordinates research activity and research sites for Harvard Forest. Interests include land use history as it relates to current forest vegetation composition.

HWA Objectives:

My primary focus in this project is establishing and collecting baseline vegetation data on the experimental plots at the Simes Tract of Harvard Forest. As of Fall 2003, eight 90m by 90m plots have been established. The interior 30m by 30m will be the focus of intensive measurements, whereas the surrounding 30m will act as a buffer. There are two replicates of the following treatments (the entire 90m by 90m will be treated): hemlock control (no treatment), hemlock girdling (to simulate many of the effects of HWA), hemlock commercial logging (to simulate the preemptive logging that is occurring in hemlock forests in our region), and hardwood control (representing a possible future composition of post-hemlock forest).

I have conducted a late-August survey of understory vegetation in all 8 plots, with plans to follow-up with an early season (mid-June) survey next year to capture a full suite of understory herbs, shrubs and tree seedlings. Currently, I am working to measure diameters, tag and map all the trees greater than 5cm diameter in the plots. The focus this fall is to complete measurement and mapping of the trees in the interior 30m by 30m of each plot, and then finish the entire 90m by 90m areas next season.

I coordinate research activity in these Simes plots with Aaron Ellison. If you are interested in working in these plots, please contact one of us.

I also work with several hemlock-dominated permanent plots across the Harvard Forest. We have information on overstory trees, saplings and understory vegetation. One plot is adjacent to the tower in the old hemlock stand on the Prospect Hill tract of Harvard Forest. Most of these plots were established for investigations of forest history and dynamics, so the modern dynamics I'm tracking can be tied to historical, tree-ring, and paleoecological information.