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Summer Research Project 2019

• Title: Group Project: Controls on Forest Productivity
• Group Project Leader: Lucy Hutyra
• Mentors: Mark Friedl; Lucy Hutyra; Leticia Lee; Eli Melaas; Jonathan Thompson
• Collaborators: Mark Friedl; Lucy Hutyra; Jonathan Thompson
• Project Description:

  Forests currently sequester roughly 30% of global anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide. At the same time, current understanding regarding how recent and future climate change has and will impact forest ecosystem properties and processes, including forests’ ability to sequester carbon, is incomplete. This uncertainty represents a critical knowledge gap that constrains our ability to both project future climate and create informed public policy supporting climate change mitigation.
  Mentors will be on-site to meet with students multiple times per week for the first couple weeks, and will communicate with the students daily. Throughout the summer mentors and students will have weekly in-person meetings and check in on a near-daily basis (telephone, email, Skype, Google Hangouts) depending on the independence of the students. The two students working on these sub-projects will take a lead on one sub-project, but contribute substantially to both projects.
  
  Project 1 - Forest fragmentation: Understanding edge influences on carbon cycling
  Disturbance and fragmentation dynamics are central in determining the microclimate and ecology of forests. The goal of this sub-project is to better understand how landscape fragmentation and forest edge dynamic influence the cycling of CO2. The student will work in the field measuring rates of carbon exchange at the leaf- and tree-scale and characterizing rates of soil CO2 efflux. In addition, we will characterize abiotic factors influencing carbon exchange including soil characteristics, air pollution loads, and micro-climate. There will be opportunity for the student to fuse field observations with ground- and satellite-based remote sensing.
  
  Applicants for this project 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.
  
  Primary mentors for this project will be Lucy Hutyra (BU) and Jonathan Thompson (Harvard Forest).
  
  Project 2 - From Leaves to Satellites: Understanding Forest Productivity from Space
  The main goal of this sub-project is to use remote sensing to improve understanding of how the structure and composition of temperate forests affects their productivity. In support of this goal, students working on this project will collect ground measurements required to measure forest productivity from satellite imagery, and develop statistical models that link these ground-based measurements to remotely sensed imagery collected at the Harvard Forest. To this end, this project will leverage existing data sets at Harvard Forest, and will involve a combination of ground-based data collection, data analysis, and modeling. Specific activities will include collection of field data related to leaf optical properties, canopy chemistry and photosynthesis; collection of ground-based measurements of canopy structure; installation and maintenance of equipment to measure light absorption by forest canopies; and processing and analysis of satellite imagery.
  
  Applicants for this project should being interested in both field- and computer-based research activities, have strong quantitative and computer skills, and ideally, knowledge of at least one computer language such as R. Experience with remote sensing or GIS is desirable, but not required. Some data collection may will require access to the forest canopy via walk-up towers and canopy lifts, and so applicants should be comfortable working at heights. Applicants should also be enthusiastic about spending time outside conducting field measurements, which can involve carrying instruments, bugs, poison ivy, ticks, and New England weather.
  
  Primary Mentors for this project will be Eli Melaas (BU), Leticia Lee (BU, and Mark Friedl (BU).
  
  

• Readings:

  Reinmann, A. B., and L. R. Hutyra. 2017. Edge effects enhance carbon uptake and its vulnerability to climate change in temperate broadleaf forests. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114.
  
  Smith, I. A., L. R. Hutyra, A. B. Reinmann, J. Marrs, and J. R. Thompson. 2018. Piecing together the fragments: Elucidating edge effects on forest carbon dynamics. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment In Press.

• Research Category: Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics, Group Projects, Forest-Atmosphere Exchange, Ecological Informatics and Modelling, Conservation and Management