We are now accepting applications for the 2011 Summer Program from undergraduates and recent graduates who are interested in an intensive research and education experience in ecology. Deadline: Feb. 4, 2011. Learn more.
The Harvard Forest has recently received a grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to undergo a feasibility study over the next 12 to 18 months that will consider the potential for one wind turbine on four possible sites. The study will evaluate environmental impacts and wind availability using Sonic Detection and Ranging (SODAR) equipment, which employs sound waves to
This winter, a new January Term course will be offered at Harvard Forest: Reading the New England Landscape: Conservation and human impacts on the past, present, and future. This highly interdisciplinary and hands-on course will explore modern-day connections between humans and the natural environment through the lens of long-term landscape change. Inquiry will focus on the historical and archival records
A sediment record from Wildwood Lake, Long Island, New York provides insight into past environmental and ecological changes in the northeastern US. Analyses of pollen, charcoal, and organic content reveal the history of climatic variations, fire, and pitch pine-scrub oak woodlands over the last 10,000 years.
Oswald, W.W., D.R. Foster, E. D. Doughty and D. MacDonald. 2010. A record
On Saturday, October 9, seven graduate students representing the three LTER sites in New England (Harvard Forest, Hubbard Brook, and Plum Island Ecosystems) gathered at the Forest to share their research and tour field sites.
The summit is scheduled occur each fall, rotating locations between the three sites. All graduate students and post-docs involved in research at a New England LTER
At an awards reception on October 26, Harvard Forest research ecologists Kristina Stinson and David Orwig were awarded Certificates of Distinction in Teaching for their work with the Harvard Forest Freshman Seminar during the spring 2010 semester. These awards are granted biannually by Harvard University's Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.
The new documentary "Secrets of the Mud: The Hemlock Mystery," by 2010 HF Summer Program student Allison Gillette, was screened in early October at an event at the Museum of Science in Boston. Allison created the film with Emerson College professor and Harvard Forest researcher Wyatt Oswald during this summer's Research Experiences for Undergraduates program. The
This summer, ecologist Dave Orwig and a crew of 6 technicians established a new, 35-hectare (about 85 acres) research "mega-plot" on Harvard Forest's Prospect Hill. Over the course of 13 weeks, they measured, tagged, and mapped every woody plant stem greater than 1 cm diameter. In the end, a whopping 29,908 stems were analyzed. Work will resume next summer to
When Tropical Trees as Living Systems was published in 1978, tropical forests were a mystery to many ecologists. The book, edited by Harvard Forest botanist P. Barry Tomlinson with Martin Zimmerman, has been re-released this year in paperback by Cambridge University Press. The book publishes the results of the Fourth Cabot Symposium held at the Harvard Forest in