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Harvard Forest Research Project 2024
- Title: Tree-Associated Fungal and Bacterial Communities at Harvard Forest 2021
- Principal investigator: Jennifer Bhatnagar (jmbhat@bu.edu)
- Institution: Boston University
- Primary contact: Kathryn Atherton (katherto@bu.edu)
- Team members: Lucy Hutyra
Ian Smith
Chikae Tatsumi
Joy Winbourne - Abstract:
Cities are investing in tree-planting initiatives to protect their citizens from climate change-related heat and pollution exposure. Studies have found that street trees can grow nearly four times as fast as rural forest trees, but die twice as fast. We hypothesize that a potential explanation for urban street tree growth and death rates is the nature of plant-fungal partnerships between urban and rural trees: urban street trees have a higher relative abundance of plant pathogenic fungi and fewer plant symbionts (ectomycorrhizal fungi) colonizing their roots due to the stressors in urban environments (pollution and N deposition). To test this hypothesis, we collected 278 soil samples, 146 leaf samples, and 53 root samples from 51 oak trees that were either in street tree pits in Boston or within the Harvard Forest’s Biomass Inventory plots. We measured the size, or diameter at breast height (DBH), of each tree and calculated its average growth rate over the past decade, and collected soil cores to measure temperature, pH, moisture, organic matter content, bulk density, and root biomass underneath each tree. We additionally are characterizing the microbial community in each sample type by extracting and sequencing 16S and ITS amplicons.
