Author: Emily Johnson

Expanding Digital Access in the Woods: Wireless Upgrades at the Harvard Forest

Posted on by Emily Johnson

The Harvard Forest Field Wireless Network (HFFW) provides Internet access to selected field sites across 1500 wooded acres of the Prospect Hill Tract, enabling scientists to monitor and control their equipment remotely and to collect and process data in real time. Operational since 2010, it is an extension of the university network and is jointly managed by Harvard Forest and Harvard University Network Operations.

Sites and Infrastructure

Research sites currently on the HFFW include three eddy flux towers, four global climate change experiments, two soil respiration sites, ten phenology cameras, four stream gages, two wetland gages, and the HF weather station. Examples of real-time data collected via the HFFW can be found by visiting Explore Real-Time Data.

How the Network Works

The HFFW uses 5 GHz radios for line-of-sight connections between research towers and 900 MHz radios for ground-based sites; the 5 GHz radios offer higher bandwidth, while the 900 MHz radios better penetrate the forest canopy. A high-capacity backbone connects the three main towers (barn, hemlock, hardwood) to the HF campus network.

Recent Improvements and Impact

With support from the National Science Foundation, recent improvements were completed by Dr. Emery Boose and Mark VanScoy and include new radios, Wi-Fi access points, and upgraded switches. Adjustments to which towers are used for the network backbone allow more streamlined maintenance, inactive sites were retired, and four new ones added.

These significant upgrades bring nearly 10x faster connections and Wi-Fi at all research sites—including the top of the hardwood tower. For research, higher bandwidth means better support for data-intensive projects.  For education and outreach, the combination of higher bandwidth and Wi-Fi availability means that Zoom sessions on laptops, tablets, and mobile phones are now possible at all sites, expanding opportunities for online field trips and remote learning.  And for network management, the new radios are significantly easier to manage and troubleshoot remotely than the old radios.

For more information on the HFFW and for assistance with connecting field equipment and setting up remote access over the Internet, please contact Emery Boose.

Tracking Forest Change in Harvard Forest’s “Megaplot” 

Posted on by Emily Johnson

When researchers analyze satellite data to study land cover, how are changes in the forest reflected? Trudging through swarms of black flies, swamps that try to pull off your boots, and all types of weather, Dave Orwig and his research team have been validating remote-sensing data with on-the-ground “stem information” at Harvard Forest since 2010. Orwig, a Senior Ecologist at Harvard Forest and instructor at Harvard University, leads a boots-on-the-ground efforts to validate satellite imagery with direct tree measurements across Harvard Forest’s 85-acre Forest Global Earth Observatory, or ForestGEO “megaplot.” 

A Census of Trees

This summer, Orwig’s team continues the third full census of the site, the largest study of its kind in North America. Every woody stem over 1 cm in diameter—about 120,000 in total—is tagged, measured, and mapped. With a crew of eight, the team will tackle about 40,000 stems this season alone. 

Research Assistants Anna Gerner, left, and Matt Gluskin, right, conduct sampling for Harvard Forest’s third ForestGEO census.

Tracking Forest Change, One Stem at a Time

Though many trees are growing older and storing more carbon, Orwig notes growing challenges like invasive pests, including the Hemlock woolly adelgid, emerald ash borer, and the recent arrival of beech leaf disease. “Will forests still be able to store carbon effectively in the face of these threats?” he asks. 

Paired with satellite data and other long-term studies, the ForestGEO census helps researchers track forest health, diversity, and climate resilience. The plot also hosts a NEON tower, giving scientists access to continuous atmospheric and ecological data. 

The megaplot crew is sampling trees deep in the woods at Harvard Forest. Photo by Nik Bates-Haus.

Regional Data that Shapes Global Insight

Dan Johnson, a current Bullard Fellow from the University of Florida, uses these data to link tree health and mortality to remote sensing. His recent paper with Isabella Stone, a former intern in Harvard Forest’s Summer Research Program in Ecology, illustrates how this living dataset supports a global community of researchers—from undergraduates to international experts. 

Harvard Forest’s ForestGEO data, which has been used in NASA’s spaceborn lidar mission (GEDI), is publicly available and widely used for ecological forecasting, forest modeling, and global synthesis studies. It has been featured in over 40 national and international publications, including a recent paper in Nature.

Receiving less than half of its annual funding from Harvard University, the Harvard Forest relies heavily on federal grants and philanthropic gifts to conduct its research and educational activities. Interested in supporting the continuation of this research? Consider donating to the Harvard Forest. 

Advancing Climate Science:  New Faculty-Led Experiment at Harvard Forest 

Posted on by Emily Johnson

Eve Farrell (left) and Stella Charbonneau (right) set up research plots at Harvard Forest. By Ben Goulet-Scott.

This spring, the rainy weather didn’t stop Benton Taylor from providing Harvard students with the opportunity to finish the design and implementation of his new experiment at Harvard Forest. Assistant Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB) at Harvard University, Taylor first learned of Harvard’s 4,000-acre laboratory and classroom while an undergraduate down south. Now, he’s helping Harvard students take advantage of the world-class research station that he refers to as “one of the world’s ‘gold standard’ sites” for large-scale forest experiments. 

A Three-Way Global Change Experiment 

Taylor’s new study – Forest Responses to Warming Atmospheric CO2 and Drought (FORWARD) – is one of the first to examine how three major climate stressors (drought, warming, and increased carbon dioxide) interact in a forest ecosystem. Most previous studies have tested these factors individually. “The value here is the three-way interaction,” Taylor explains, “giving us a reasonably accurate picture of what future environmental responses will be in a forested setting.” 

Biodiversity Belowground 

Initially, Taylor considered conducting the roughly half-acre experiment – roughly the size of a Harvard Yard courtyard – at Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum, where his lab is located. But despite Harvard Forest’s distance (roughly 90 minutes west of campus), the combination of cutting-edge experimental infrastructure and the full biodiversity of intact forest landscape at Harvard Forest created a unique opportunity for Taylor to assess biodiversity’s role in a forest’s ability to withstand stress. “Symbiotic relationships in the soil appear to be incredibly important for ecosystem response to global change,” says Taylor.  

In Harvard Forest’s relatively natural setting, the unique presence of two key mycorrhizae – or belowground symbiotic associations between certain fungi and plant roots – may continue attracting researchers like Taylor who are interested in understanding biodiversity’s role in climate change. 

The installation of twenty-six hexagonal frames will allow unique experimental conditions at each plot. Photo by Benton Taylor.

Leveraging Forest Infrastructure 

The experiment uses 26 hexagonal plots, each four meters across, and is about a ten-minute walk from Harvard Forest’s main buildings. Taylor says the Forest’s existing infrastructure—power, a nearby shed, and gas lines—made it much easier to implement the design. Some plots will be fumigated with CO2 to mimic atmospheric conditions expected 75 years from now. 

Expanding Student Opportunities 

Leveraging the Harvard Forest Summer Research Program in Ecology, Taylor is giving students hands-on experience with real-world climate research. Eve Farrell, a doctoral student in Taylor’s lab at OEB, who first learned of Harvard Forest through a 2025 Harvard Winternship, is now mentoring Harvard College undergraduate Stella Charbonneau. A rising sophomore with a concentration in Integrative Biology, Charbonneau is among a growing number of Harvard students who are becoming more familiar with Harvard Forest. 

Taylor’s connection to the Forest began nearly 20 years ago and nearly 1,000 miles away. Now teaching Experimental Design and Statistics for Ecology, he plans to bring students to the site this fall. A superb example of concepts taught in the classroom, the Harvard Forest is one of very few places where students can see a variety of unique methodological approaches in one setting (reconstructing hurricane damage and warming the soil, for example). “For a class that’s focused on how to design experiments and ecological studies, Harvard Forest is a one-stop shop for information.” 

Lauren Jaeger, Lab Tech at the Taylor Lab, examines vegetation in the new research plot. By Benton Taylor.

Internationally Renowned, Institutionally Underrecognized 

Iconically known across the international ecological research community, the University’s own understanding of its unmatched research forest is surprisingly minimal. “People come to Harvard Forest because we have a long history of data, of manipulating the forest in big crazy ways that allow researchers to really understand how the forest operates in a way that perhaps no other sites come close to,” explains Taylor. “If I were thinking of the Mount Rushmore of biological field stations in the world, Harvard Forest is there.” 

Research Experience for Teachers Program Matches K-12 Educators with Climate Scientists at Harvard Forest

Posted on by Emily Johnson

This summer, the Matthes Lab, led by Dr. Jackie Matthes, will be hosting two K-12 teachers as part of a Research Experience for Teachers program sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The two Boston Public School teachers will be measuring and analyzing methane and carbon dioxide emissions from the Black Gum Swamp and upland forests as part of a large scale study measuring methane dynamics in temperate forests at the intersection of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

The opportunity provides valuable support to Harvard’s climate research in an experiential learning setting, offering an unmatched opportunity to advance K-12 professional development goals of area educators.

This year’s educators include Emily Coumbassa, a middle school science teacher at the Donald Mckay K-8 School (East Boston), and Diana Klimas, who teaches Biology at Madison Park Vocational School (Roxbury). Both new to the Schoolyard Ecology program, the two educators will use Harvard Forest data to develop new classroom-ready materials to share with K-12 classrooms this fall, which will be available freely to educators through the Data Nuggets program.

A workshop on Tuesday, August 19th will be held at Harvard Forest’s Fisher Museum for any interested educator looking to bring cutting-edge, hands-on climate data into their classroom. Register for our Summer Institute here.

Interested in supporting more work like this? Consider donating to our Schoolyard Ecology fund.

Mass Envirothon Teams Install New Research Plots, Expanding Data Collection Sites for K-12 Program

Posted on by Emily Johnson

This May, four Massachusetts Envirothon teams joined Harvard Forest’s Schoolyard Ecology Program, advancing their efforts of the 2025 Envirothon theme, Forest Stewardship, Resilience for a Changing Climate. Harvard Forest’s Manager of Youth Education Katharine Hinkle stepped up to support these schools, bringing classroom learning into an experiential research setting.

The teams, from various high schools across the state, each joined Harvard Forest’s Our Changing Forests program as part of their research and community action project, setting up new research plots with the support of the MA Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). With a small grant and the support of Felicia Hubacz (DCR Forest Health Specialist), and Hannah Bergquist (DCR staff), the student groups were able to purchase materials to set up a permanent plot sites at their schools, collect field data, and enter it into the Schoolyard Database.

The team from Doherty Memorial High School in Worcester received the Mass Envirothon Community Engagement Award for their thorough and wide-ranging community investigation and contributions. “Their work exemplifies the integration of science and civic knowledge and skills and the building of community connections that are critical for addressing environmental issues in a democratic society,” says John Staley, Doherty Memorial High School Principal. A visit to the Harvard Forest in April prepared the students for this work, providing the opportunity to strengthen classroom learning by taking field measurements, observing experimental design, and advancing critical thinking skills.

In addition to the Doherty team, other schools that joined the Our Changing Forest project through this program were David Prouty High School (Spencer), Acton Boxborough High School, and Lexington High School.

Harvard Forest Researchers & Educators Have Inspired Nearly 20 Years of High School Data Collection

Posted on by Emily Johnson

For nearly 20 years, students at Tewksbury Memorial High School (TMHS) have contributed to climate change research as part of the Harvard Forest Schoolyard Ecology program, Buds, Leaves, and Global Warming. Since 2005, when former teacher Elaine Senechal joined the effort, TMHS has built the longest-running school dataset in the program, tracking tree phenology, or the timing of seasonal life cycle events like leaf-out and leaf drop, to understand how climate affects growing seasons.

The Buds, Leaves, and Global Warming project was inspired by observations made in the 1990s by Harvard Forest ecologist John O’Keefe, who noticed seasonal shifts in trees at the Forest. Today, data collected by TMHS students feed into a database used by scientists to assess long-term trends, which shows a growing season that appears to be lengthening.

Despite changes to the landscape such as original trees lost to construction and new ornamental species being excluded from the study, TMHS students have kept the research going. Science teacher Patrick Cassidy now leads the program, which has been a favorite among students for its hands-on, outdoor learning.

Katharine Hinkle, Manager of Youth Education at Harvard Forest and coordinator of the Schoolyard Ecology program, recognizes the value of the Tewksbury students’ dataset not only for its contributions to current climate research, but also for its inspiration to the students who have collected it over the years. “We are so thrilled that Tewksbury has been our longest running participant — 19 years. We work with hundreds of schools, and having this hyperlocal response helps students see the impacts right in front of their eyes,” Hinkle said in a recent interview with the Tewksbury Town Crier.

Undergrad Interns Arrive to Advance Ecological Research, Expand Expertise

Posted on by Emily Johnson

This week, Harvard Forest welcomed its 32nd cohort of undergraduate research interns who will spend 11 weeks investigating forest ecology, biogeochemistry, and land-use change. Part of the Forest’s Summer Research Program in Ecology, students engage in an immersive, hands-on research experience that has been transformative for hundreds of students having participated in the residential program for over three decades.

Projects this year will span topics from Indigenous land relations and biodiversity to climate change impacts on soil, trees, and carbon cycling. Interns will dig into research that examines salamander responses to soil warming, forest fragmentation’s effects on carbon flux, the ecological legacy of disturbances such as hurricanes and invasive pests, and more.

Inspiring the Next Generation of Climate Leaders

Recognizing the deep disciplinary expertise of the Harvard Forest community, this year’s mentors hail from Harvard University, Stanford University, UMass Amherst, Dartmouth College, UMass Lowell, Washington & Lee University, the University of Florida, the University of Minnesota, and CUNY Hunter College, in addition to leadership from the Indigenous tribe of the region, the Nipmuc. Interns come from institutions including Harvard University, Calvin University, Howard University, Georgia State University, Washington & Lee University, Oakland University, Lafayette College, the University of Richmond, Smith College, McGill University, Washington College, the University of Michigan, the University of Maine, the University of Puerto Rico, the University of Hawaii, and Stevenson University.

Several projects advance multi-year research inquiries that leverage Harvard Forest’s unique infrastructural capacity and build upon the scientific expertise of diverse research collaborators across various institutions.  Each student-mentor team contributes to vital long-term ecological research while gaining hands-on experience in the field and lab.

Interested in following along with what our interns are up to? Join us on Instagram to learn more!

Woods Crew Receives 2025 Dean’s Distinction Award

Posted on by Emily Johnson

They wear hard hats, hearing protection, orange vests, and steel-toed boots. They wield chain saws, band saws, welding torches, and brooms; they pilot tractors, skidders, a 78’ aerial lift, and a huge dump truck. They are the Harvard Forest Woods Crew and their domain is the 4,000 acres of woods and 15+ buildings that make up the Harvard Forest, including a public museum, multiple scientific labs, a state-of-the-art biomass heating facility, commercial kitchen, and 32 miles of trails.

Working closely with Harvard Forest scientists and students, the Woods Crew is comprised of five incredibly capable and dedicated individuals, including Lucas Griffith, Josh Johnson, Oscar Lacwasan, Nicholas Maynard, and Roland Meunier. Operations of Harvard Forest’s world-class research facilities would not be possible without them; their receipt of the 2025 Dean’s Distinction award is just a miniscule way to honor their humble contributions to our work.

Woods Crew members Lucas Griffith, Josh Johnson, and Nicholas Maynard (L-R) pause during a chainsaw training.

“No, it can’t be done” are not ones they have ever spoken. Over the past year, the Woods Crew has built an eddy flux tower in the middle of a beaver swamp and created a 15-acre clearing in the middle of the woods for a study of the impacts of forest fragmentation. When tragedy struck last summer, it was the Woods Crew who was first on the scene.

The technical wizards and steady hands that support and sustain the Forest’s research and education mission, the Woods Crew clearly exemplifies the Dean’s Distinction’s criteria for “outstanding citizenship, collaboration, and contribution in support of excellence in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences community.”

We are eternally grateful for the Woods Crew’s steadfast patience with the wild imaginings of our research team.

Woods Crew member Nicholas Maynard assists a misfortunate cow with removal of porcupine quills. By Lucas Griffith.

We’ve Launched our New Website!

Posted on by Emily Johnson

Over the past year, several Harvard Forest staff have worked diligently to upgrade the design, content, and functionality of our website. With gratitude to Common Media for their thoughtful leadership in designing and developing the new site, we hope that it offers improved user experience, particularly on mobile devices!

Check out new features such as our events calendar, a more comprehensive page highlighting our people, and updated information on specific philanthropic opportunities.

Please bear with us as we work out our final unexpected kinks. If you encounter issues, please let us know by emailing hf-website@fas.harvard.edu.

Study Launched During COVID Lockdown Shows Urban Trees Are Imperfect Models for Climate Change

Posted on by Emily Johnson

A new study led by researchers at Harvard University and published in PNAS reveals that urban trees are more sensitive to warming temperatures than previously understood — a finding that could change how scientists predict the effects of climate change on forests.

Many scientists study urban heat islands — places where cities are warmer than surrounding rural areas — as a way to understand how plants might respond to future warming. These side-by-side comparisons help researchers estimate how trees and other plants will behave as temperatures rise. But the new study shows that this method can give misleading results — especially when it doesn’t account for genetic differences between trees growing in different places.

The project began during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Sophie Webster, then an undergraduate at Harvard College had to leave campus and could no longer collect data herself. She passed her work to Meghan Blumstein, then a Ph.D. student in Harvard’s Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, who was living in Lowell House as a resident tutor. With most research options shut down, Meghan followed a route Sophie had designed, walking along the Charles River in a mask and recording when local red oak trees began to leaf out.

“It was one of the few things we could do at the time,” Meghan recalls. She was even photographed collecting samples on the same day she received her first COVID vaccine.

The team obtained permission to monitor large red oaks in Harvard Yard, near the John Harvard statue, and partnered with scientists at the Harvard Forest, a research site roughly 60 miles west of Cambridge. Over the next three years, they collected data from both sites — tracking temperature, leaf-out timing, and the genetic profiles of the trees.

Typically, trees planted in urban settings are selected for certain traits, such as appearance or hardiness, which inadvertently influence a broad range of genetic factors. This second variable — genetic variation — makes it difficult to isolate the effect of temperature alone, weakening the comparison. So while the urban trees did share some genetic similarities with a subset of the rural trees, those at the rural site had a much greater range of genetic diversity and a wider spread in leaf-out timing.

The results showed that even when accounting for genetic background, trees in the study appeared to be more sensitive to changes in temperature than expected. This finding highlights a key limitation of space-for-time substitutions — although comparing warmer urban areas to cooler rural ones can offer useful insights, it may not always capture important biological differences like genetics that affect how trees respond to warming.

“This mismatch confirms what some remote sensing studies have hinted at — urban heat islands aren’t perfect stand-ins for global warming,” says Blumstein, now Assistant Professor of Environmental Sciences and Architecture at the University of Virginia.

The new results suggest that genetic differences — not just temperature — play a major role in how trees respond to their environment.

That has important implications for how scientists build climate models. In particular, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses data from urban-to-rural temperature gradients to help predict how plants and ecosystems will respond to future warming. This study suggests that without accounting for genetics, those predictions might underestimate how sensitive forest trees really are.

The researchers emphasize that even though this study focused on red oaks, the findings likely apply to other temperate tree species as well. Because the timing of leaf-out is a critical point in climate models, even small errors in prediction could have large consequences.

Fortunately, the researchers suggest there is a way to improve these predictions. By including genomic data in future studies and models, scientists may be able to make more accurate forecasts about how forests will respond to climate change.

Schoolyard Ecology Workshop: A celebration of “data-versaries”

Posted on by Emily Johnson


On Tuesday, April 1, the Harvard Forest Schoolyard Ecology program hosted its annual Spring Workshop, where twenty teachers convened to learn from Harvard Forest ecologists about project protocols an how these themes are being integrated into class curricula.

The group also climbed the canopy walk up tower for a new way of looking at the forest. The cohort also celebrated the data anniversaries, or “data-versaries” of seven long-time contributors!

Five years:

  • Elicia Andrews – Quabbin Regional High School
  • Erin Pitkin – Drumlin Farm, Mass Audubon
  • Kim Russell – Nashoba Brooks

Ten years:

  • April LeSage – Wahconah High School
  • Mary Reed – St Mary’s Parish
  • Elisa Margarita – Brooklyn Technical High School

Fifteen years:

  • Sally Farrow – Drumlin Farm, Mass Audubon

Annual Ecology Symposium Highlights New Initiatives, Strong Research Network

Posted on by Emily Johnson

On March 18, Harvard Forest hosted its annual research symposium, entitled “Future Directions of Research and Education at the Harvard Forest.” Hosting roughly 100 individuals in person and even more online, this year’s event included a variety of presentations that focused on new research projects, recent findings, and strategies towards continuing long-term research in the current funding climate.

Spanning topics both above and below-ground, presenters shared insight on root microbe partnerships, the greenhouse gas potential of disturbed soils, global change drivers, adaptive tree growth, trees as a part of larger ecosystem resilience, and more.

View the list of speakers or watch the event recording!