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Harvard Forest Symposium Abstract 2012

• Title: The 35 ha HF-SIGEO plot: almost done!
• Primary Author: David Orwig (Harvard Forest)
• Abstract:

  Harvard Forest researchers, with the assistance of scientists from the Center for Tropical Forest Science and the Smithsonian Institute’s Global Earth Observatory (CTFS-SIGEO), continued the census of woody stems within the 35 ha plot located on Prospect Hill in June, 2011. Using standardized CTFS-SIGEO methodology, Dave Orwig and five 2-person crews measured, tagged, painted, and mapped every stem greater than 1 cm diameter at 1.3 m. Field crews worked for 13 weeks and entered quadrat data daily. Vegetation sampling ended in early September 2010 after more than 43,000 stems were measured. A crew of three then began additional winter sampling on January 2, 2012. Through March 14, 2012, an additional 5000 stems have been sampled in the dense beaver swamp in the north-central portion of the plot. The swamp is particularly dense, containing shrub thickets with densities of 300 to 900 stems per 400m2. To date, almost 33 of 35 ha have been sampled, representing approximately 83,000 stems. All stems were entered twice into the temporary database during the summer and screened for errors. In addition, all 10 x 10 m stem maps were digitized and every stem was converted to x-y coordinates. We hope to complete the remaining 2 ha of swamp forest during spring/summer 2012. The HF SIGEO plot is dominated by eastern hemlock and northern hardwood species in upland plots and winterberry holly in swamp plots, and will make an excellent comparison with several other hardwood plots in North America and China at similar latitudes. This plot is part of a global array of large-scale plots established by CTFS, which recently expanded sampling efforts into temperate forests to explore ecosystem processes beyond population dynamics and biodiversity. The geography and size of the Harvard Forest plot (500 m x 700 m) was designed to include a continuous, expansive and varied natural forest landscape that will yield opportunities for the study of forest dynamics and demography while capturing a large amount of existing science infrastructure (e.g. eddy flux towers, gauged sections of a small watershed, existing smaller permanent plots) that will enable the integrated study of ecosystem processes (e.g., biogeochemistry, hydrology, carbon dynamics) and forest dynamics . Thus, the resulting data will integrate well with ongoing NSF-funded LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) and NEON (National Ecological Observation Network) studies.

• Research Category: Large Experiments and Permanent Plot Studies