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Summer Research Project 2017

• Title: Group Project: Explaining variation in the seasonal changes of trees
• Group Project Leader: Margaret Kosmala
• Mentors: David Basler; Margaret Kosmala
• Collaborators: David Basler; Margaret Kosmala; Andrew Richardson
• Project Description:

  Phenology is the study of recurring lifecycle events, influenced by seasonal environmental changes. Classic examples include plant flowering and animal migration. By regulating the growing season of the deciduous forest, tree phenology such as leaf emergence in spring and leaf color change in fall affects spatial and temporal patterns of forest primary productivity. There is a growing consensus on the need to better document biological responses to changing climate, and phenological monitoring is one way of doing so.
  
  The goal of this project is to better understand local-scale constraints on tree phenology and broad-scale geographic variation in tree phenology. While day length and temperature have important effects on when tree leaves emerge, how long they take to develop, and when they turn color and fall, the phenology of individual trees varies even in small areas that have the same general day length and temperature patterns.
  
  This project will use repeat imagery from Harvard Forest’s PhenoCams (part of the PhenoCam network; http://phenocam.sr.unh.edu) and data from the National Phenology Network (https://www.usanpn.org/data), as well as other supplementary data to explore variation in phenology among species. We seek two students to work on two specific sub-projects:
  
  Project 1. Characterize the trees that can be seen from Harvard Forest PhenoCams. This sub-project involves identifying the trees that can be seen from the Harvard Forest PhenoCams and then taking various measurements of them. These attributes, such as species identity, tree size, and tree age, will then be related to the tree’s spring and autumn phenology as seen from the PhenoCams to better understand which are the important traits driving phenology.
  David Basler will be the primary mentor for this project.
  
  Applicants for project 1 should have good quantitative and computer skills. You should be enthusiastic about spending much of your time outside conducting field measurements, which can involve carrying heavy instruments, bugs, poison ivy, ticks, and the typical extremes of New England summer weather.
  
  Project 2. Explore variation in tree phenology using a national phenology database. This sub-project involves using the extensive dataset created by the National Phenology Network’s citizen science project Nature's Notebook to better understand regional and national variation in phenology for tree species that are found at Harvard Forest. The goal is to better understand how well phenology measurements taken at one site (such as Harvard Forest) are comparable with phenology measurements taken at varying distances from that site and what other data can assist in extrapolating from one site to a region.
  Margaret Kosmala will be the primary mentor on this project.
  
  Applicants for project 2 should have strong quantitative and computer skills and knowledge of at least one computer language such as R. You should be enthusiastic about spending most of your time inside, working at a computer on data analysis.
  
  Each student will spend approximately 80% of their time working on their primary project and about 20% of their time assisting the other student on the other project. In your application, please indicate which project (1 or 2) you are most interested in working on.
  
  Mentors will be on-site to meet with students most days for the first couple weeks, and communicate with the students daily. Through out the summer mentors and students will have weekly in-person meeting and check in on a near-daily basis (telephone, email, Skype, Google Hangouts) depending on the independence of the students.
  

• Readings:

  About phenology:
  https://www.usanpn.org/about/why-phenology
  
  About PhenoCam:
  https://phenocam.sr.unh.edu/webcam/about/
  
  About studying phenology at Harvard Forest:
  http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/conservation/a-web-of-sensors-enfolds-an-entire-forest-to-uncover-clues-to-climate-change
  
  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140605183641.htm
  
  

• Research Category: Regional Studies, Physiological Ecology, Population Dynamics, and Species Interactions, Group Projects, Forest-Atmosphere Exchange, Ecological Informatics and Modelling, Conservation and Management