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June 8, 2015

2015-2016 Charles Bullard Fellows Announced

A river flowing through the woods

We are pleased to announce the Harvard Forest Charles Bullard Fellows for 2015-2016. The mission of the Charles Bullard Fellowship Program 

June 2, 2015

Study: Diverse Soil Community Key to Climate Protection

Harvard Forest soil warming research plots

As soil microorganisms decompose plant and animal material, globally, they release 10 times more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than humans do. A warming climate and increased nitrogen pollution accelerate this process, triggering the release of even more greenhouse gases. New results from the Forest's long-term soil warming experiment, published last week in the Proceedings of the National

June 2, 2015

Film Shows the Story of Climate Change, Told By One Tree

Witness Tree by Lynda Mapes

During her Bullard Fellowship at the Forest, journalist Lynda Mapes has been taking a long look at a single tree: a tagged, tracked, 100-year-old red oak. A new short film by Patrick Wellever and colleagues from the Knight Science Journalism program at MIT highlights

June 1, 2015

HF Schoolyard Ecology Teachers Earn Top Honors

Winner of the Overlook Award

For over a decade, K-12 teachers in the Harvard Forest Schoolyard Ecology Program have been working with scientists to incorporate hands-on field science into their classrooms. This year, two of our 72 active teachers were honored at the Massachusetts State House for excellence in environmental education.

Teacher Joann Mossman was one of only six teachers in the state to win "First

May 21, 2015

Bullard Spotlight: Diana Tomback and Foundation Species Loss

Whitebark pine research group at work in Alberta, Canada

Diana Tomback, Professor and Associate Chair of Integrative Biology at the University of Colorado-Denver, has had a unique, two-phase Bullard Fellowship. She spent the winter in HF researcher Andrew Richardson's lab on the main Harvard campus, learning new approaches to assessing the impacts of global change at the forest and global scale.

This summer, she's at

May 14, 2015

New Study: Ecosystem Hotspots Increasing in Mass.

Developed landscape with trees showing fall foliage

All land is not created equal.  Ecosystem "hotspots" do triple duty in the benefits they provide to society. A new study published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology reports that the number of ecosystem

May 12, 2015

40-Year Study Reveals New Insights on Carbon

Walter Lyford's hand-drawn map

The middle-aged forests of the East Coast may not look like carbon-storing powerhouses. But New England forests take in enough carbon each year to offset nearly half the region's household carbon dioxide emissions. A new study by HF ecologist Audrey Barker-Plotkin and Summer Research Program alumna Kate Eisen explores how trees are getting the job done.

The study,

May 4, 2015

New Study: Benefits of Carbon Emissions Standards

Air sampling above the canopy at Harvard Forest

A new study in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that states can gain large clean air and public health benefits from power plant carbon standards. The paper, co-authored by Kathy Fallon Lambert, HF Science & Policy Integration Project Director, also documents how these added benefits depend entirely on critical policy choices that will be made by

May 1, 2015

Keystone Conservation Leaders Trained at Harvard Forest

Keystone Project class of 2015

More than 450 Massachusetts community members have completed the 3-day training workshop for the Keystone Project, held each spring at the Harvard Forest. This month, a class of 24 joined their ranks.

In ecology, a keystone species is one whose impacts on its environment are larger and greater than would be expected from one species. The Keystone

April 30, 2015

Sensor Networks and the Arrival of Spring

Harvard Forest stream weir

The field wireless network at Harvard Forest was recently expanded to enable (near-) real-time data from four stream gages, two wetland gages, and a snow pillow. Data from these stations and the Fisher Meteorological Station are collected, processed, and uploaded to our website every 15 minutes along with 30-day graphs of selected variables. The graphs, which contain about 3,000 data points

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