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Hysteresis of the Sarracenia Purpurea Microecosystem in Northern Vermont 2015-2016
The restoration of plant and animal communities damaged by chronic detrital or nutrient enrichment is a long-standing environmental problem. In a replicated greenhouse experiment with the aquatic microbial community that inhabits the cup-shaped leaves of the carnivorous pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea, we monitored O2 levels and the concentration of bovine serum album (BSA), an effective molecular substitute for detritus. Low BSA enrichment rates triggered a classic hysteresis response, a substantial lag in the return of O2 levels. At intermediate BSA enrichment rates, O2 levels closely tracked BSA concentrations during both the enrichment and recovery phases. High BSA enrichment rates induced an unusual "anti-clockwise" hysteresis in which O2 levels were higher during the recovery phase than during the enrichment phase. These experiments revealed complex dynamic behavior in response to enrichment rates of a single environmental driver. Our results suggest that the past trajectory of enrichment is critical for understanding how systems will respond to restoration initiatives. Specifically, systems that have been exposed to chronic low levels of enrichment may be the ones that are most resistant to restoration efforts that reduce nutrient or detrital inputs.
Linking Community Dynamics and Ecosystem Function at Harvard Forest 1996-2000
Human activities are effecting profound changes in the structure and function of natural ecosystems. A comprehensive understanding of current ecosystem dynamics and future responses to global change requires an integrated investigation of ecological processes at many levels of organization. My thesis research addressed this goal by examining interactions between community- and ecosystem-level dynamics in mixed conifer broad-leaved forests in eastern North America. I addressed the nature of canopy-seedling feedbacks in mixed forests by relating seedling regeneration patterns in contrasting stand types to understory conditions (EXPERIMENT 1), and by directly manipulating resource availability to separate the individual effects of particular resources (EXPERIMENT 2). To investigate how nitrogen deposition will influence future forest composition, I examined the impact of increased nitrogen availability on regeneration of both coniferous and broad-leaved tree species under both closed canopy (EXPERIMENT 3) and simulated gap (EXPERIMENT 4) conditions. Future changes in forest composition might then influence whole-ecosystem productivity. I used two scaling approaches (leaf-level aggregation, EXPERIMENT 5; whole-tree sap flow, EXPERIMENT 6), I examined how the dominant coniferous and broad-leaved species in mixed temperate forests differed in their contributions to canopy-level photosynthesis.
Land Zones in New England 1940-2070 from 2017 Wildlands and Woodlands Report
This dataset contains two GIS datalayers, one CSV file and an associated R script used to produce figures for the 2017 Wildlands and Woodlands report. The “wedge diagram” data (HF360-01-landcover-data.csv) shows actual percent landcover estimates across New England from 1940 to 2010 and straight-line trends needed between 2010 to 2070 to reach the Wildlands and Woodland vision by 2060. The published diagram can be seen in figure 1 of the 2017 Wildlands and Woodland report. In hf360-03-community-forests.zip, the GIS layer shows towns that contain community forests as determined by the authors of the report. In hf360-04-wildland-woodland-zones.zip, the GIS layer shows Wildland and Woodland Zones as illustrated in the report. It was created by starting with the Wildland and Woodland zones from the 2010 report and adding in areas with high agricultural land use. These types are meant to be conceptual and not prescriptive. Wildlands and Woodlands Report: Foster, D. R., Lambert, K. F., Kittredge, D. B., Donahue, B. M, Hart, C. M., Labich, W. G., Meyer, S., Thompson, J. , Buchanan, M., Levitt, J. N., Pershel, R., Ross, K., Elkins, G., Daigle, C., Hall, B., Faison, E. K., D'Amato, A. W., Forman, R. T. T., Del Tredici, P., Irland, L. C., Colburn, B. A., Orwig, D. A., Aber, J. D., Berger, A., Driscoll, C. T., Keeton, W. S., Lilieholm, R. J., Pederson, N., Ellison, A. M., Hunter, M. L., Fahey, T. J. 2017. Wildlands and Woodlands, Farmlands and Communities: Broadening the Vision for New England.
Academics for Land Protection in New England (ALPINE) GIS Data 2015-2018
Academics for Land Protection in New England (ALPINE) is a network of academic institutions committed to increasing the pace of land protection in New England to address the region’s environmental challenges and to support nature and people. ALPINE seeks to expand the role that academic institutions play in conserving the New England landscape by sharing experiences and resources among faculty and staff, students, administrations, and alumni. This dataset contains point locations of colleges that are participants in ALPINE and parcels of natural land owned by participating schools who submitted data to the ALPINE coordinator.
Forest Type Maps for New England from Historical Studies 1912-1956
This data package contains 3 GIS layers showing generalized forest types across New England as delineated in older forestry publications. These were digitized so that they can be used to illustrate broad vegetation patterns across the region in modern publications. These GIS layers include maps drawn by Hawley and Hawes (1912), RT Fisher (1933), and Westveld and the Committee on Silviculture, New England Section, Society of American Foresters (1956).
Atmospheric Gaseous Elemental Mercury Fluxes at Harvard Forest EMS Tower 2019-2020
In terrestrial ecosystems, dry deposition of atmospheric gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) is considered the dominant source of mercury accounting for 54% to 94% of mercury loads observed in soils, yet direct quantification of GEM deposition across forests is largely missing. The goal of this project is to quantify atmosphere-surface exchange of GEM at Harvard Forest for one full year, providing the first such record in a non-polluted forest. GEM exchange is measured using micrometeorological techniques using a large measurement tower, the only available method for direct, non-intrusive and time-extended measurements of net GEM exchange at the ecosystem level encompassing all underlying sinks and sources. A second objective was to partition GEM fluxes into canopy and soil contributions via deployment of two corresponding flux systems: one system was deployed above the forest canopy to measure ecosystem-level GEM exchange; a second system was deployed below the canopy to quantify soil contributions. This dataset contains an 18-month record of gaseous elemental mercury concentrations and fluxes measured at the EMS tower at Harvard Forest from May 2019 to August 2020.
Long-Term Field Research Sites at Harvard Forest since 1937
The Harvard Forest is an iconic field station, hosting hundreds of field-based studies since it was founded in 1907. Site-based, long-term research increased sharply starting in 1988, when Harvard Forest became a Long-Term Ecological Research Site. This dataset documents the locations of most long-term research studies initiated since 1988; a few studies that began earlier and are still active are also included. Short-term studies, or studies that focus on sampling individual organisms, are not included.
Vegetation Inventory of Harvard Forest 1937
The three main tracts of the Harvard Forest (3000 acres) in Petersham, MA have been sampled every 10-30 years since 1907. Though methods have varied, each survey has involved mapping forest stands followed by intensive sampling. The 1937 forest inventory was conducted one year before 75% of the standing timber at Harvard Forest was blown down by the 1938 hurricane. This valuable data set shows maximum vegetation development since agricultural abandonment. Data collected in this inventory include tree volume by species and presence/absence of advance regeneration, shrubs, herbs and bryophytes.
Harvard Forest Schoolyard Data since 2004
In the Harvard Forest Schoolyard program, HF ecologists work directly with teachers from public and private schools across New England (and the eastern U.S.) to learn about and initiate ecological research in their classrooms and schoolyards. More than 3500 students each year from grades 4-12 participate in authentic, field-based research projects that address current and important environmental issues. Projects to date have included tree phenology, the hemlock woolly adelgid, vernal pools, intermittent streams, and long-term forest plots. Participating schools submit data to an online database on the Harvard Forest website where the data are reviewed by HF staff and then made freely available for download and for graphing online. The project is supported by the National Science Foundation, the Highstead Foundation, the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University, and private donors. For current data, please see: https://harvardforest2.fas.harvard.edu/asp/hf/php/k12/k12_project.php.
Quantifying Growth and Structure along Forest Edges in the Northeastern USA 2010-2021
Fragmentation transforms the environment along forest edges. The prevailing narrative, driven by tropical research, suggests that edge environments increase tree mortality and structural degradation resulting in net decreases in ecosystem productivity. We show that temperate forest edges exhibit increased forest growth (basal area increment; BAI) and biomass (basal area; BA) with no change in total mortality relative to the forest interior. To assess forest edges, we analyzed more than 48,000 forest inventory plots (USDA FIA) across the north-eastern US using a quasi-experimental matching design. At forest edges adjacent to anthropogenic land covers, we report increases of 36.3% and 24.1% in forest growth and biomass, respectively. We then scale the edge impacts on growth (along anthropogenic edges only) across our study area using maps of land-cover and forest type. We find large variability in the effect of including edges on estimates of total forest growth, largely driven by differences in the prevalence of fragmentation. Estimated increases in forest growth range from a 23% increase in the agricultural-dominated western areas, a 2% increase in the least-fragmented northern regions, and a 15% increase within the metropolitan east coast. Finally, we also quantify forest fragmentation globally, at 30-m resolution, showing that temperate forests contain 52% more edge forest area than tropical forests. We provide two tables containing the post-matched dataset of FIA subplots, including subplot BA, BAI, and edge status. We include the associated environmental covariates, extracted from gridded raster data, and used in our matching and statistical analyses. Due to plot confidentiality restrictions we do not provide spatial locations of the FIA subplots, but we do provide unique plot identifiers that allow users to link each record to the publically-available data provided by the USDA FIA database (https://apps.fs.usda.gov/fia/datamart/). This dataset can be used to re
Soil Respiration at Forest Edges along an Urban to Rural Gradient in Massachusetts 2018-2019
As urbanization and forest fragmentation increase around the globe, it is critical to understand how rates of respiration and carbon losses from soil carbon pools are affected by these processes. This study characterizes soils in fragmented forests along an urban to rural gradient, evaluating the sensitivity of soil respiration to changes in soil temperature and moisture near the forest edge. While previous studies found elevated rates of soil respiration at temperate forest edges in rural areas compared to the forest interior, we find that soil respiration is suppressed at the forest edge in urban areas. At urban sites, respiration rates are 25% lower at the forest edge relative to the interior, likely due to high temperature and aridity conditions near urban edges. While rural soils continue to respire with increasing temperatures, urban soil respiration rates asymptote as temperatures climb and soils dry. Soil temperature- and moisture-sensitivity modeling show that respiration rates in urban soils are less sensitive to rising temperatures than those in rural soils. Scaling these results to Massachusetts (MA), which encompasses 0.25 Mha of urban forest, we find that failure to account for decreases in soil respiration rates near urban forest edges leads to an overestimate of growing-season soil carbon fluxes of greater than 350,000 MgC. This difference is almost 2.5 times that for rural soils in the analogous comparison (underestimate of less than 143,000 MgC), even though rural forest area is more than four times greater than urban forest area in MA. While a changing climate may stimulate carbon losses from rural forest edge soils, urban forests may experience enhanced soil carbon sequestration near the forest edge. These findings highlight the need to capture the effects of forest fragmentation and land use context when making projections about soil behavior and carbon cycling in a warming and increasingly urbanized world. We provide soil respiration, soil temp
Assessing Plant Phenological Patterns in Tropical Brazil 1901–2020
Phenology is a key biological trait of an organism’s success and is one of the best indicators of its response to recent climate change. Plants are among the most well-studied organisms in this regard, but observational data bearing on this topic are largely restricted to species of the northern hemisphere, mostly from ca. the last three decades. Phenological data from tropical latitudes are especially lacking. Recent research has demonstrated that mobilized online herbarium specimens provide important, albeit mostly neglected, information on plant phenology. Here, we use the web tool CrowdCurio to crowdsource phenological data from nearly 35,000 herbarium specimens representing 260 flowering plant species broadly distributed across tropical Brazil. Our results, spanning 120 years and generated from over 1000 crowdsourcers, clarify numerous aspects of tropical plant phenology. First, they reveal that plant reproductive timing is exceptionally diverse across tropical biomes and taxa. Second, they identify that phenological responses to climate are variable across taxa and biomes. Third, among those species with broad latitudinal ranges, populations from more southern latitudes are significantly more phenologically sensitive to precipitation than those from northern populations. Our results are robust to a variety of confounding factors and span large phylogenetic distances and various life histories. These may represent more global trends in the latitudinal gradient of tropical phenological response with myriad potential ecological and evolutionary consequences. This dataset may be used for non-commercial purposes. Please provide the following attribution: Davis, C., Lyra, G., Park, D., Zhang, H., Asprino, R., Maruyama, R., Torquato, D., Cook, B., Xie, J., Ellison, A. 2022. Assessing plant phenological patterns in tropical Brazil 1901–2020. Harvard Forest Data Archive: HF427. Please note that the license we provide does not apply to images linked from the data set. P
Soil Carbon Dioxide and Oxygen at the Soil Warming Plus Nitrogen Experiment at Harvard Forest since 2018
This dataset includes soil air CO2 and O2 concentrations measured from the organic/mineral horizon interface and 10, 30, and 50 cm depths of the mineral soil at SWaN using permanently installed stainless steel gas wells. Measurements were made 4-8 times throughout the year in 2018, 2019, and 2020.
Soil Carbon at Forest Edges along an Urban to Rural Gradient in Massachusetts since 2018
Global proliferation of forest edges through anthropogenic land-use change and forest fragmentation is well documented, and while forest fragmentation has clear consequences for soil carbon (C) cycling, underlying drivers of belowground activity at the forest edge remain poorly understood. Increasing soil C losses via respiration have been observed at rural forest edges, but this process was suppressed at urban forest edges. We offer a comprehensive, coupled investigation of abiotic soil conditions and biotic soil activity from forest edge to interior at eight sites along an urbanization gradient to elucidate how environmental stressors are linked to soil C cycling at the forest edge. Despite significant diverging trends in edge soil C losses between urban and rural sites, we did not find comparable differences in soil % C or microbial enzyme activity, suggesting an unexpected decoupling of soil C fluxes and pools at forest edges. We demonstrate that across site types, soils at forest edges were less acidic than the forest interior (p less than 0.0001), and soil pH was positively correlated with soil calcium, magnesium and sodium content (adj R2 = 0.37), which were also elevated at the edge. Compared to forest interior, forest edge soils exhibited a 17.8% increase in sand content and elevated freeze-thaw frequency with probable downstream effects on root turnover and decomposition. Using these and other novel forest edge data, we demonstrate that significant variation in edge soil respiration (adj R2 = 0.46; p = 0.0002) and C content (adj R2 = 0.86; p less than 0.0001) can be explained using soil parameters often mediated by human activity (e.g., soil pH, trace metal and cation concentrations, soil temperature), and we emphasize the complex influence of multiple, simultaneous global change drivers at forest edges. Forest edge soils reflect legacies of anthropogenic land-use and modern human management, and this must be accounted for to understand soil activity and C
Modeling Impacts of Hurricanes on Current Aboveground Forest Carbon in New England 2020-2120
Nature-based climate solutions are championed as a primary tool to mitigate climate change, especially in forested regions capable of storing and sequestering vast amounts of carbon. New England is one of the most heavily forested regions in the United States (over 75% forested by land area), and forest carbon is a significant component of regional climate mitigation strategies. Large infrequent disturbances, such as hurricanes, are a major source of uncertainty and risk for policies that rely on forest carbon for climate mitigation, especially as climate change is projected to alter the intensity and geographic extent of hurricanes. To date, most research into disturbance impacts on forest carbon stocks has focused on fire. Here we show that a single hurricane in the region can down between 121-250 MMTCO2e or 4.6-9.4% of the total aboveground forest carbon, much greater than the carbon sequestered annually by New England’s forests (16 MMTCO2e yr-1). However, the emissions from the storms are not instantaneous; it takes approximately 19 years for the downed carbon to become a net emission, and 100 years for 90% of the downed carbon to be emitted. Using the HURRECON and EXPOS models to reconstruct hurricanes across a range of historical and projected wind speeds, we find that an 8% and 16% increase in hurricane wind speeds leads to a 10.7 and 24.8 fold increase in the extent of high-severity damaged areas (widespread tree mortality). Increased wind speed also leads to unprecedented geographical shifts in damage; both inland and northward into heavily forested regions traditionally unaffected by hurricanes. Given that a single hurricane can emit the equivalent of 10+ years of carbon sequestered by forests in New England, the status of these forests as a durable carbon sink is uncertain. Understanding the risks to forest carbon stocks from large infrequent disturbances is necessary for decision-makers relying on forests as a nature-based climate solution. This data set
Candida Pseudoglaebosa Ecology in Sarracenia Purpurea Pitcher Plants at Harvard Forest since 2021
Fungi and bacteria are common members of the microbiomes of carnivorous plants. In the pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea these microorganisms enter carnivorous pitchers shortly after pitchers develop, and may be relevant for pitcher functioning. We are sampling pitchers repeatedly over several years to better understand the culturable diversity in this habitat, with a focus on the common pitcher yeast Candida pseudoglaebosa and fungi that have the potential to interact with it. C. pseudoglaebosa dominates pitcher plants by arriving early in pitchers, and we are interested in how this yeast’s populations change over time and in response to other pitcher microorganisms. Between 2021 and 2023, we collected pitcher water from Tom Swamp in Harvard Forest and cultured 118 yeast and bacteria colonies from this water. We have found C. pseudoglaebosa and some other yeasts (Papiliotrema, Rhodotorula, and Sporidiobolus); microbial identification is ongoing. We are planning to investigate changes in C. pseudoglaebosa genetic diversity and changes in C. pseudoglaebosa interactions with other pitcher microorganisms over time.
Effects of Long-Term Soil Warming on Ecosystem Function at Harvard Forest 2019
Across biomes, soil biodiversity promotes ecosystem functions. However, whether this relationship will be maintained within ecosystems under climate change is uncertain. Here, using two long-term soil warming experiments, we investigated how warming affects the relationship between ecosystem functions and bacterial diversity across seasons, soil horizons, and warming duration. Soils were sampled from these warming experiments located at the Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site, where soils had been heated +5°C above ambient for 13 or 28 years at the time of sampling. We assessed seven measurements representative of different ecosystem functions and nutrient pools. We also surveyed bacterial community diversity. We found that ecosystem function was significantly affected by season, with autumn samples having a higher intercept than summer samples in our model, suggesting a higher overall baseline of ecosystem function in the fall. The effect of warming on bacterial diversity was similarly affected by season, where warming in the summer was associated with decreased bacterial evenness in the organic horizon. Despite the decreased bacterial evenness in the warmed plots, we found that the relationship between ecosystem function and bacterial diversity was unaffected by warming or warming duration. Our findings highlight that season is a consistent driver of ecosystem function as well as a modulator of climate change effects on bacterial community evenness.
Quantifying Forest Edge Area in the Northeastern USA 2016
Temperate forests are the most fragmented forest biome, yet current understanding of fragmentation effects on ecosystem processes, such as carbon cycling, is rooted in tropical forest research. In the associated manuscript, we review the effects of persistent fragmentation on temperate forest ecosystem processes and quantify the extent to which the US national forest inventory and land-cover maps represent forest edge area. We find a systematic underrepresentation of forest edges across all methods. Compared with very high resolution (1 m) maps, conventional 30 m resolution forest cover maps underestimate forest edge area by 16.4%, on average. Accounting for all forest edge area and edge effects on forest structure and growth results in a 14.8% median increase in aboveground forest carbon estimates with 23.8% and 74.2% increases in agriculturally and urban dominated counties, respectively. We conclude by proposing improvements to forest inventories, maps, and models to better represent the fragmented temperate forest landscape. We provide Google Earth Engine scripts (Gorelick et al. 2017; written in JavaScript) to calculate forest edge area and forest cover from commonly-used land cover maps, including the 2016 National Land Cover Database (NLCD), the 2016 Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection annual product (LCMAP), and the 2016 MODIS Land Cover IGBP annual product (Yang et al. 2018; Sulla-Menashe et al. 2019; Brown et al. 2020). We also include equivalent scripts to process a very-high resolution (1-m pixel size; VHR) land cover map of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed in 2014 (Pallai and Wesson 2017). We provide an R script to calculate forest edge proportion from the US national forest inventory (USDA FIA), following methods to identify inventory plots containing forest edge as described in Morreale et al. (2021) and using the R library rFIA to access the FIA data (Stanke et al. 2020). We also provide a data table containing the estimated forest area and
Effects of Long-Term Soil Warming on Microbial Yield, Acquisition, and Stress Traits at Harvard Forest 2014
Soil microbial traits drive ecosystem functions. This relationship can explain why microbial functional diversity is typically positively correlated with ecosystem function. However, microbial adaptation to climate change related warming stress can shift microbial traits with direct implications for carbon cycling in the soil. Here, we investigated how long-term warming affects the relationship between microbial trait diversity and ecosystem function. Soils were sampled after 24 years of +5\degree C warming alongside unheated control soils from the Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research site. Ecosystem function was estimated from six different enzyme activities and microbial biomass. This data was coupled with metatranscriptomics sequencing, where reads were assigned to yield, acquisition, or stress trait categories. We found that in organic horizon soils, warming decreased the richness of acquisition-related traits. In the mineral soils, we observed that heated soils exhibited a negative relationship with the richness of acquisition related traits. These results suggest that the microbial communities exposed to long-term warming is shifting away from a resource acquisition life history strategy.
Functional Traits of Selected Tree Species in Harvard Forest, New Hampshire, and Southern Quebec 2015
Increasing evidence suggests that species' phenological responses may predict their performance with warming, but this work has generally ignored whether phenology is correlated with other traits known to drive plant performance. This is perhaps surprising given that interest in functional traits has also increased in recent decades, yet within the functional traits literature there has been an equally limited consideration of phenology, perhaps because robustly estimating it is time-intensive, and simple field estimates will show extreme variation across sites of different latitudes and climate regimes. Here we collected a suite of trait data on the same species for which we collected phenological data (see related dataset HF314, Leaf and Flower Phenology of Woody Plant Species at Harvard Forest and Southern Quebec 2015) to help address this gap. We focused on populations of trees in temperate forests in the Northeast face, which face different environmental conditions across their ranges. This project measured functional traits of trees at two to four sites, to provide a foundation for studies on the relationship between range shift, phenology, and functional traits.
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These curated guides explain access requirements, typical timelines, costs, and reuse considerations for widely used research datasets.
Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.