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Harvard Forest Research Project 2024

• Title: Adaptation and Trophic Resiliency (aka The Goldenrod Project)
• Principal investigator: Oswald Schmitz (oswald.schmitz@yale.edu)
• Institution: Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
• Primary contact: Matthew Baker (baker.m@northeastern.edu)
• Team members: Matthew Baker
  Annise Dobson
  Ashley Echelberger
  Oswald Schmitz
  Nathalie Sommer
  Geoffrey Trussell
  Clara Winguth
• Abstract:

  This study will assess adaptation and trophic resiliency to climate change using old fields, grasshoppers and spiders. We will study eight populations of red-legged grasshopper (Melanoplus femurrubrum) from locations experiencing different temperature variances. This will be done in their home fields (e.g. Harvard forest) as well as a southern (CT) and northern (VT) common garden. We will assess whether these populations respond differently to predators, including their physiology and impacts on plants and ecosystem function (e.g. soil carbon sequestration).