Wildlands and Woodlands Stewardship Science Vegetation Plots in New England 2009-2015

The Wildlands and Woodlands (W&W) initiative is a broad, collaborative effort to protect 70% of New England in forest over the next 50 years. At the heart of this initiative is the awareness that our wooded landscapes provide immeasurable economic, environmental, and cultural benefits and the conviction that we should understand these systems better, manage them wisely, and conserve them for the future. As part of W&W, Stewardship Science seeks to encourage widespread application of an accessible approach to monitoring forests that interested landowners or conservation-minded individuals can use to track changes in their woods over time. Whether the motivation is active management for timber, understanding how forests are being shaped by factors ranging from climate change and ice storms to insect pests, or simple pleasure in observing nature’s dynamics, anyone equipped with a notebook, tape measure, pencil, and the willingness to puzzle through a book of tree identification can readily develop a robust and valuable set of observations. This idea is not new. For over 150 years, leading conservationists and ecological thinkers beginning with Henry David Thoreau have argued that there is much to be learned through simple, long-term measurements of forest growth and change. Yet there are still remarkably few examples of private landowners, land trusts, timber companies, or conservation organizations that base their understanding and management practices on a regular system of observations and measurements. Because the vast majority of forestland in New England is privately owned, most of these lands remain unmonitored, and management plans are often drawn up from casual rather than systematic observation. For more background information on the project, please see the Wildlands & Woodlands Stewardship Science manual. This data package contains vegetation and environmental data on 64 20x20m plots set up in four areas across New England by staff and summer field crews from the Harvard Forest. These plots were set up on properties owned by different conservation-minded organizations and families with the broad intent of sampling across different management regimes (managed vs. unmanaged), across contrasting forest tree communities, and across different forest ages. The sampled areas include properties in southern Petersham, northeast Vermont, and central Maine. These data are part of a central W&W Stewardship Science data repository created by the Harvard Forest to hold data collected by our Stewardship Science partners at Highstead and elsewhere. It is hoped that researchers will use these plots to inform land managers and engage landowners now, and especially in the future; as the plots get resampled, they will provide valuable insights on short-and long-term forest change.