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Will’s project took him to his home state – even home watershed – of Maine, where he worked with a partnership of five regional land trusts to assess forest climate vulnerability. The partnership, spanning western Maine and eastern New Hampshire, is interested in understanding how climate change will alter the region’s forest dynamics and how to best adapt their management practices to anticipated impacts.

Will spent the 2023 field season swatting mosquitos, eating blueberries, and trying to not let the birds distract him as he established sixteen 1.5-acre sampling plots where he measured, identified, and mapped the location of over 5,600 stems and collected regeneration data. He then incorporated all his data into a forestry model, HeteroFor, which can simulate forest growth and dynamics for the next 77 years under different climatic and silvicultural management scenarios. Will hopes his results will help guide landowners in implementing effective climate-adaptive forest management strategies.

Urban forests are special places, often overlooked when it comes to long-term ecological monitoring. Michelle Giles established 41 Continuous Forest Inventory plots in ¶¶Òõ̽̽’s own Centennial Woods Natural Area within the cities of Burlington and South Burlington. She collected data on the size, species, and canopy of over 1,700 trees in the woods, stopping to appreciate tree frogs and chipmunks whenever possible. With that data, she generated an informed management plan for the 147-acre urban forest.

She also spearheaded an investigation into making Centennial Woods accessible to students and visitors who use mobility aids such as wheelchairs or walkers. She completed a trail assessment, consulted with trail builders, talked with stakeholders and neighbors, and presented to various student organizations to spread the word and get feedback. Her efforts culminated in a proposal for funding the design of an ADA-accessible trail.

The Hohe Garbe spans 420 hectares along the former East-West German border in northern Saxony-Anhalt. The area hosts one of the largest floodplain forests in the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Elbe River Landscape and forms part of the German Green Belt, an 870-mile nature reserve tracing the historic wall’s path. However, the forest’s connection with natural flooding was severed by an obsolete agricultural dike. In 2019, restoration efforts began to revive this connection, involving the opening of the dike and excavation of new flood channels. During the 2023 field season, Lee conducted vegetation surveys to assess the impact of these restoration measures on the landscape. Sponsored by BUND, Friends of the Earth, Toomey used data and spatial analysis to quantify changes in vegetation composition, providing valuable insights for future management practices aimed at preserving floodplain functionality. This study underscores the importance of international collaboration in conservation efforts, particularly as nations increasingly turn to nature-based solutions to address climate change.

Mount Mansfield’s ridgeline is the largest alpine area in Vermont and home to many plants that are otherwise uncommon or rare in the state. The last study of community plant composition here was completed in the early 1990s, and in the 30 years since, the number of days of snow cover have dropped and minimum temperatures have climbed. To see how these unique natural communities are responding and to understand species presence, abundance, and distribution, Catherine resurveyed four permanent summit plots and established two more. Within randomized quadrats she collected data on environmental variables and cover percentages of plants and lichens. Sponsored by the Green Mountain Club, which stewards the Long Trail, and by ¶¶Òõ̽̽, which counts the ridgeline as one of the university’s Natural Areas, she had the great privilege of spending her time among the many resilient species that endure the rain and wind of the ridgeline for far longer than a field season.

Dave conducted an ecological assessment of Adams Camp, a parcel owned by the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, VT, on behalf of Stowe Land Trust, with a focus on balancing recreational trail development with protection of wildlife habitat.

After a summer of bird counts, camera trapping, and vegetation surveys, Dave changed hats and acted as a facilitator throughout the process of updating the Adams Camp Recreation Management Plan. He interviewed key stakeholders, surveyed the community, and organized a series of meetings – through which the stakeholders agreed to adopt several recommendations from his ecological assessment, including the designation of a formal trail-free area in the center of the parcel. Dave’s project concluded with a GIS-based inventory and analysis of the complete trail network in Stowe to assist Stowe Land Trust with future conservation decisions.

Mass Audubon, New England’s largest nature-based conservation organization, initiated a project in 2015 to enroll roughly 10,000 forested acres in the California cap-and-trade program. Enrolling in the program committed Mass Audubon to maintaining the carbon in these forests for at least 100 years and establishing intensive long-term monitoring to ensure these forests continue to store and sequester carbon. Evan leveraged the existing plot network to assess other ecosystem variables, quantifying forest resilience and vulnerability. Adapting methods the National Park Service and other agencies use to inventory and monitor their forests, he identified patterns of regeneration failure and compositional mismatch that could lead to a shift in canopy composition and structure. He used mixed models combining anthropogenic stressors, climate change, forest structure, and other variables to identify possible drivers of regeneration failure. He found that regeneration debt was significantly associated with herbivory pressure from white-tailed deer, underlining the need for active deer management across the state.