Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest
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Presort Standard ISSUE NUMBER 5 U.S. Postage Paid SUMMER 2 0 0 5 USDA Forest Service Permit No. G-40 FOREST SCIENCE Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest will mark its 50 years on July 12 with a celebration event that will focus on the “Past, Present and Future of Watershed 11 Campus Boulevard, Suite 200 NORTHEASTERN Research.” The morning session begins at 9 a.m. and will include short talks by Newtown Square, PA 19073-3200 RESEARCH STATION individuals who helped make HBEF the renowned research site that it is. The afternoon USDA FOREST SERVICE session will include a more detailed presentation on the future of watershed research. Past, Present and Future of Watershed Research Morning Session: Environmental research, technology & leadership • Opening Remarks by Chris Eagar, Michael Rains and others • History: The Weeks Act, and establishment of HBEF – Charlie Gogbil • Beginnings at Hubbard Brook - 1955-1965: A student’s perspective - Tony Federer (retired FS scientist) • The heart and soul of HBEF: Reflections on Robert Pierce – Carol Pierce Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest • The HBES – Gene Likens (co-founder HBES) • More than watershed studies – Richard Holmes Celebrating 50 Years as a Forest Service • Day in and Day out: Two careers at HBEF: The Sheriff of HB – Wayne Martin (retired FS scientist and site manager for HBEF) National Scientific Treasure Gazillions of water samples – Don Buso (long-term cooperator) • Floods, Droughts, and Erosion: Hubbard Brook Answers the Call – Jim Hornbeck (retired FS scientist) • Contributions to natural resource management – Steve Fay (retired soil scientists for WMNF) hat characteristics would make a tract of • Views from the present – Amey Bailey and John Campbell W land a national treasure? Yosemite and the • Concluding Remarks – Herb Bormann (co-founder HBES) Grand Canyon bring to mind beauty and grandeur; 11:30 – 1:00 Lunch Christopher Eagar received a BS in business administration in 1969, Kitty Hawk and Valley Forge, historical significance. an MS in forestry in 1978, and a PhD in ecology in 1985, all from the The Everglades and the Cache River Big Woods in University of Tennessee. From 1981 to 1988, he worked as an ecologist Afternoon Session: Arkansas (home to the newly rediscovered ivory- Mini Symposium on the Future of Watershed Research, with presentations by Richard Hooper, for the National Park Service at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, billed woodpecker) have ecological significance Gene Likens, Scott Bailey or Lindsey Rustad, and Charles Driscoll. studying acid rain effects on high-elevation forest ecosystems. Eagar then joined the Forest Service in 1988 and later became leader of the Durham, and Kitt Peak National Observatory and the NH–based work unit entitled “Ecological Processes: A Basis for Managing Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest have scientific Forests and Protecting Water Quality in New England.” In addition to significance. The importance of these examples is conducting research throughout New England, this group is responsible for the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest. Eagar’s address is USDA Forest probably apparent to most readers, but the Hubbard Service, Northeastern Research Station, 271 Mast Road, Durham, NH Brook Experimental Forest’s significance may not. 903825; tel: 603-868-7636; e-mail: [email protected] Web Resources This special part of the Forest Service’s Northeastern USDA Forest Service Northeastern Research Station’s field unit at Hubbard Brook EF: Amey Schenck Bailey is the forestry technician who maintains, Research Station and National Forest System has a processes, and transmits data from the long-term hydrometeorological “The Forest Service’s system of www.fs.fed.us/ne/durham/4352/hb.shtml unique role in forest ecology and environmental monitoring networks at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest. She experimental forests is a national studies. In the debate about global change, the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study: also leads tours there and participates in education and outreach efforts. treasure. These environmental www.hubbardbrook.org Bailey received her BA in botany and music from Connecticut College, comparison to past conditions is crucial, and to New London, in 1986 and an MF from Duke University School of Forestry, laboratories have provided decades- know what has changed, you must know what Commemorative Lecture by Drs. Likens and Bormann at receipt of the 2003 Blue Planet in 1991. She began working for the USDA Forest Service at the HBEF long research data that help us has gone before. But how do we know what world Prize, summarizing the work at HBES: in 1992. Her mailing address at the HBEF is 234 Mirror Lake Road, www.af-info.or.jp/eng/honor/2003lect-e.pdf Campton, NH 03223; tel: 603-726-8902; e-mail: [email protected] understand what has happened to conditions were like in times gone by? Researchers our forests, the environment, and, have found some clues in historical documents Experimental Forests and Ranges of the USDA Forest Service. 2004. By Adams M.B., and archeological sites, but scientifically useful Loughry L., Plaugher L. Newtown Square, PA: USDA Forest Service Northeastern Research in the case of the Hubbard Brook Station. Gen. Tech. Rep. NE-321. Available for order or viewing at the following URL: Experimental Forest, how forest environmental databases of any age or duration The late Robert Pierce began working for the Forest Service’s are extremely rare. The data and samples from 50 www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/viewpub.jsp?index=7403 Northeastern Forest Experimentation Station at the newly founded ecosystems respond to disturbance.“ years of research at Hubbard Brook Experimental USDA Forest Service, Northeastern Research Station: publications requests Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in 1955 and made the HBEF MICHAEL T. RAINS Forest (HBEF)—7,800 acres in the White Mountain www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications his life’s work until his death in 1993. The FS laboratory center at HBEF is named in his honor. Pierce received a BS in forestry from the Director, USDA Forest Service, National Forest in central New Hampshire—are a University of Michigan and MS and PhD degrees in forest soils from Northeastern Research Station, 2005 unique library of information for environmental the University of Wisconsin. 5 6 1 continued on page 2 NE Forest Science Review is dedicated to presenting clear and concise information on current problems and issues relating to forests and forestry scientists to consult, examine, or even re-analyze with cooperative work to understand the complex ecosystem in the Northeast and the role of the nearly 100 more modern technologies. In addition, because of its processes, such as nutrient cycling through the scientists in the USDA Forest Service’s Northeastern hydrological studies, evaluation of input and output budgets for important Small-Watershed Model: (NE) Research Station in exploring these topics and finding solutions for problems. the Hubbard Brook chemical elements. The research at the HBEF expanded Key to Discoveries EF is the place where, to include many facets of applied ecosystem-level The small-watershed model provides We hope that land managers, policymakers, in 1967, a significant research. Thus, Hubbard Brook scientists were perfectly a tool for researchers at the Hubbard science communicators, extension specialists, Brook EF to quantify nutrient cycling. environmental advocates, and educators, as well piece of environmental placed to provide data on environmental problems. as conservationists and all others interested in the information—the A naturally occurring and bounded watershed underlain by water- health and productivity of forests in the Northeast, presence of acid Now the Center of a Community of Scientists will find our quarterly newsletter useful and impermeable bedrock is the basic unit of informative. rain (now more Now the Hubbard Brook EF is the focus of a large study. All water entering the watershed inclusively called “acid network or community of scientific partners— is measured by rain gauges within The NE Research Station is part of the USDA Forest deposition”) in North scientists and graduate students from private research and around the watershed. All water Service’s Research & Development national network Data courtesy of G. Likens leaving the watershed is measured, of six regional research stations, the Forest Products America—was first noted in rain samples. organizations and universities—studying the hydrology Laboratory, and the International Institute of Tropical and ecology of forested watersheds. This community System (GTOS) initiated by the World Meteorological or gauged, by a special small dam Forestry. NE scientists work at research sites in 13 Early Days at the Hubbard Brook EF is organized as the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study Organization and as a Biosphere Reserve in the called a weir located at the base of the states—Hamden/Ansonia, CT; Newark, DE; watershed. Then the estimated amount Amherst, MA; Baltimore, MD; Bradley, ME; Durham, The Northeastern Forest Experiment Station, as the NERS (HBES). Although the original studies were carried United Nation’s Scientific, Educational, and Cultural of precipitation per area entering the NH; Burlington Co., NJ; Syracuse, NY; Delaware, was then known, established the Hubbard Brook EF in out solely by NE scientists, most of the research done Organization’s Program. watershed is multiplied by the area of the watershed to give the volume of water entering. The OH; Warren and Newtown Square, PA; Burlington, 1955 so that its scientists could study the effects of forests now at the HBEF is cooperative. The HBEF is a member volume entering as precipitation minus the volume leaving in stream water gives the amount VT; and Morgantown, Parsons, and Princeton, WV. and forest management on components of the hydrologic of several world-wide networks: it is 1 of only 26 Chiefly, Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study scientists of water that is lost from the watershed as evaporation and transpiration from trees and other NE scientists work in laboratories and a wide variety cycle, erosion, and water quality.