Biomass Inventories at Harvard Forest EMS Tower since 1993

In 1993, we installed 40 circular, 10 m radius biometric plots in the footprint of the EMS tower on Prospect Hill. We randomly placed the plots within 100 m increments along ten 500 m transects that extend from the tower in the northwest and southwest directions. In 2001, we removed three plots (G3, H3, H4) from the datasets and ceased measurements there due to their inundation by a beaver pond. In 1999, we installed 6 additional circular, 10 m radius biometric plots on the Simes Lot, adjacent to Prospect Hill to study the effects of a selective harvest that occurred there in the winter of 2000-01. In the summer of 2001, we expanded the harvested plots in size to 15 m radius and ceased measurements at one plot (X4) because it was unaffected by the harvest. The harvest also affected three of the original tower plots (A4, A5, B5), which were expanded in size as a part of the harvest plot group. Consequently, there are 34 tower plots and 8 harvest plots. We have taken the following ecological measurements at each site: tree growth, woody debris, litter, leaf area increment (LAI), leaf chemistry, and soil respiration and moisture.