You are here
Harvard Forest REU Symposium Abstract 2023
- Title: Comparing survival of New England tree species based on life stage
- Author: Helen Tarrau (Miami Dade College)
- Abstract:
Forests play a huge role in mitigating climate change, as they serve as carbon sinks. Prioritizing the regeneration and conservation of old growth forests is vital due to their role in carbon sequestration. Survival of trees can vary among different life stages and species, for a wide range of reasons, light dependency, and size. To have a better understanding about how survival varies amongst life stages and species, we focused on the survival of red maple (Acer rubrum), red oak (Quercus rubra), Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), White pine (Pinus strobus), and Birch species (Betula spp). as seedlings, saplings, and adults. We defined life stages as seedlings (10 cm DBH); this was done in the 35 ha ForestGEO plot at Harvard Forest. Seedling data was taken from the 134 plots within the ForestGEO plot, while sapling and adult data was taken directly from previous research done in the plot. We used R to analyze our results using a logistic regression test to model survival, treating species and life stages as fixed effects. We found that survivability varies based on species and life stage, showing that there is an interaction between them. We saw an overall low percentage of seedlings survival with red oak having the highest survival with a p-value of 0.14 in comparison to birch spp. which had p-value of 0.02. When it came to adult survival, the p-value varied from 0.54 at the lowest and 0.89 at the highest in a five year period. As disturbances and diseases persist in the forest, comparing species and life stages can lead us to understand how individuals are reacting to these changes. This information can be used to get a better understanding of future forest regeneration and highlights the importance of long term monitoring like that done at Harvard Forest.
- Research Category: Physiological Ecology, Population Dynamics, and Species Interactions; Large Experiments and Permanent Plot Studies
