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Harvard Forest REU Symposium Abstract 2013

  • Title: Deciduous Tree Phenology at Harvard Forest: A Comparative Study Across Species and Habitat
  • Author: Arturo Martinez (Carnegie Mellon University)
  • Abstract:

    An understanding of plant phenology is crucial in order to predict how future climate scenarios will affect the timing of forest ecosystem processes, such as carbon sequestration. The aggregate phenology of a forest is made of divergent responses of individual trees, which may have different phenologies owing to species dependent response to climate, or microenvironmental variation. In order to observe leaf phenology of individual trees, this project uses a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) to collect pictures of the forest canopy every five days over a defined area at Harvard Forest throughout spring. By analyzing greenness intensity over time for individual trees and applying model-based methods to extract phenology transition dates, leaf phenology is compared within and across deciduous tree species. This analysis yields insight into the degree of phenological plasticity within species, and how this compares to differences between species. After separating the area into subregions, the effects of local environment on the phenology of trees are examined. The results show that independent of the subregion, ring-porous trees have later leaf out than diffused porous trees. In addition, trees which were closer to wetland regions were more likely to leaf out later than those in dry regions. It is hypothesized that trees within a given species that have easier access to sunlight, such as open grown trees in wetlands, do not need to develop leaves as early as trees grown in a closed canopy, which have more competition for light from neighboring trees.

  • Research Category: Ecological Informatics and Modelling; Group Projects

  • Figures:
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