Visual Counts of Tree Reproduction near NEON plots at Harvard Forest since 2020

Mast seeding, a resource pulse that has cascading effects in the environment, is a measure that can provide insight into forest dynamics. When masting data is collected in sequential years it can provide information on how tree populations are responding to climatic and environmental variables, and can also be used to relate to other indices, such as seed-eating animal species. The objective of this study is to quantify the yearly seed production of mast seeding tree species at Harvard Forest which are located near National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) plots. This project is part of larger NEON-enabled project examining mast seeding on a continental scale at 25 NEON sites in the United States, which uses mast seeding records in conjunction with NEON collected data products like mammal box-trapping, tick drags, and bird point counts. Data collected on mast seeding can be linked to these other indices at regional and continental scales.种子大年（Mast seeding）是一类可在环境中产生级联效应的资源脉冲事件，亦是可用于深入解析森林动态的观测指标。若通过连续年度收集种子大年观测数据，可获知树木种群对气候与环境因子的响应模式，同时亦可用于关联食种子动物类群等其他生态指标。本研究的目标为：对位于国家生态观测站网络（National Ecological Observatory Network, NEON）样地附近的哈佛大学森林（Harvard Forest）内的种子大年树种的年度种子产量进行量化。本项目属于依托NEON开展的大型研究项目的一部分，该项目在美国境内25个NEON观测站点开展大陆尺度的种子大年研究，将种子大年记录与NEON采集的小型兽类笼捕、蜱虫拖网采样、鸟类点样调查等数据产品相结合。在区域及大陆尺度下，种子大年相关观测数据可与上述其他生态指标建立关联。