The student will also assist in laboratory analyses such as soil sieving, drying, filtering and extracting and data entry and analysis. The student will have an option of an independent project, but it is not required. In 1969, a set of permanent plots was established at Harvard Forest. The site is a mixed hardwood forest that originated after an old-field white pine stand was cut in about 1890. These plots have been periodically remeasured and provide an opportunity to track forest stand dynamics over a time scale of decades and a fine spatial scale, and to relate vegetation patterns to mapped edaphic features.
Previous data are available here .
These plots will be revisited this summer, to complete a thirty-two year record of change in this forest. The data collected in 2001 will be integrated into a spatial database. The main responsibilities of the summer student will be to assist in field data collection, data entry and analysis. Experience working with spatial data is helpful but not required. Depending on the student's interests, there are many possibilities to develop an independent project that complements the main sampling goals for this summer.