As part of a hands-on course in global change research, six science journalists from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Logan Science Journalism Program spent 3 days at the Harvard Forest in May, working alongside scientists to count Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, measure tree seedlings in herbivore exclosures, quantify carbon dioxide fluxes from a soil warming experiment, and core down to

A new paleoecology study by Emerson College/HF scientist Wyatt Oswald and HF director David Foster describes multiple episodes of eastern hemlock population decline ~6,000 years ago in New England. These events precede a major and more often-studied hemlock population decline 5,500 years ago. All of the decline events coincide with indicators of abrupt climate change. The sensitivity of hemlock populations,

Debby Kaspari, Harvard Forest’s first Bullard Fellow with a focus on art, has been engaged since March on a series of pastel drawings she’s calling “Ghosts in the Forest: an artist’s narrative of New England historical sites in various stages of reclamation by nature.” Field and archive work

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