Previous Highlights:

Recruiting Interns and Graduate Students.  Revised 2/21/12.   More Info

Differentiating soil respiration between roots and decomposers.  Kikang Bae compared the soil respiration between trenched and untrenched plots in Jeffers Brook (most fertile), Hubbard Brook (intermediate), and Bartlett (C6 and C9, least fertile) in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  Posted 12/21/11 More Info

Wollastonite application, and installation of soil moisture probes:  The last of the wollastonite was applied Friday, November 11, 2011-- right on schedule.   More Info

Evaluating rotary cores for sampling exchangeable cations, carbon, and nitrogen in rocky soils.  A summary of Carrie Rose Levine's thesis project.    December 06, 2011 More info

Maps.  Matt Vadeboncoeur, who produced project maps for the Calcium Project, has updated maps for the multiple elements now being evaluated for their potential to be co-limiting.   Now that plot locations have been finalized,  maps of what's within each plot (i.e., baskets, collars, MRs, and soil-sampling subplots) will be underway.  Login to view individual maps

Nutrient resorption results.  Before trees drop their leaves each fall, trees withdraw (or resorb) nutrients from them.  What percentage?  Do all species resorb at the same rate?  Craig See has the preliminary results from this investigation.   July 05, 2011 More info

MELNHE at the HBEF Meeting, July 6-7, 2011. 

This project will be well represented at the 48th (!) Annual Cooperator's Meeting of the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study, hosted at the Robert S. Pierce Laboratory, Hubbard Brook Experiemntal Forest, Woodstock, NH. Presentations address: Finally funded and fertilizing: Predicting tree growth rates in response to altered N and P availability in the Shoestring Study  (Shinjini Goswami, doctoral student, Miami Univeristy); Chop it down: Reducing uncertainty in tree height measurements (Lin Liu, undergraduate student, ESF and Sichuan University);  Young and old stands differ in N vs. P resorption from leaves, consistent with MEL model predictions (Craig See, masters student, ESF); The Shoestring Satellite Experiment: N, P, and what about K? (Mariann Johnston, Assistant Professor, Forest Technology Program, ESF);  Beech bark disease, past and future (Christy Tanner, REU student, Linfield College); Nutrient additions affect ecosystem water use: Plans for measuring sap flow in trees (Neal Smeltzer, undergraduate student, Colorado College);  Nutrient availability affects soil respiration and belowground carbon allocation in northern hardwood forest of the White Mountains of New Hampshire (Kikang Bae, doctoral student, ESF); Popsicle sticks and filter papers: Plans for cellulose and lignin decomposition experiments (Amos Lim, undergraduate student, ESF); Mycorrhizal colonization of roots: soil depth and species composition (Franklin Diggs, master's student, ESF).  There is also one project poster:  Why is soil respiration higher in urban forests than rural forests? (Russell Auwae, doctoral student, Miami University).  Stay tuned as these presentations become new MELNHE Research Highlights!   Several collaborators will present work from concurrent projects during this jam packed meeting.  Schedule  Team members please note:  Shoestring Meeting at the Hubbard Brook Cooperators Meeting, Thursday July 7,  1:30pm in the lunch room.

Field Season is in full swing!  Please visit the "Summer on a Shoestring" blog for first hand accounts on height measurements, fertilization, minirhizotron measurements, as well as on cultural exchanges.  June 17, 2011 More info

Pre-treatment soils results.   In order to know what affect this summer's fertilization scheme has on plant development, we also need to know what the nutrient status of the sites were before application. Melany Fisk reports pre-treatment data.  June 17, 2011 More info  

Parameterizing the MEL Model.  In the first year of the project, Dr. Ed Rastetter developed parameters to run the MEL model for New England hardwood forests using Hubbard Brook data sets and feedback during many conferences with collaborators.  The model simulated N, P and N plus P fertilization in a young (30 yr old) and a mature (80 yr old) forest recovering from bole-only harvests.  The model predicts short- and long-term plant growth response, soil organic matter accumulation and assimilation, as well as microbial activity.   June 17, 2011 More Info

Supplemental Funding.  Our requests for Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and Research Opportunity Award (ROA) have been recommended for funding this summer. Kelly Nywening, a junior Forest and Natural Resources Management major at SUNY-ESF, has begun her Research Experience project looking at tree inventory data, and Mark Green, Assistant Professor of Hydrology at Plymouth State University, and USFS Research Hydrologist will be joining the project with ROA support.  Dr. Green will be investigating the soil moisture response to calcium fertilzation.  April 14, 2011 More info

Soil respiration in young and old stands in northern hardwood forests, NH.  Kikang Bae measured soil respiration for two growing seasons to investigate differences in Jeffers Brook (most fertile), Hubbard Brook (intermediate), and Bartlett (C6 and C9, least fertile) in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Posted 4/11/11 More Info

Nitrification and N mineralization at Bartlett.    Carrie Rose Levine documents pre-treatment procedures and results that indicate that there are no significant differences between the future fertilization treatments (N, P, NxP, control) when blocked by site.  This assures researches that any differences observed following upcoming treatments are the results of the randomly assigned treatments rather than artifacts of preexisting differences.  April 01, 2011 More Info

If you have problems with this site, please email forestecology@esf.edu