![Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest 2015 Mariel Carr](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Hubbard_Brook_Experimental_Forest_2015_Mariel_Carr.JPG)
Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest is an area of land in the towns of
Woodstock
Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...
,
Ellsworth and
Thornton in the
White Mountains of
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
that functions as an outdoor laboratory for ecological studies. It was initially established in 1955 by the
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency inc ...
for the study of the relationship between forest cover and water quality and supply.
Forest land management
In 1955 the first tract was dedicated in the Hubbard Brook watershed, just west of the village of
West Thornton, New Hampshire. The first stream in the forest was fitted with monitoring devices in 1956. Subsequently, seven additional headwater streams and their associated
watersheds were delimited for study. Each such zone functions essentially as a closed environmental system. Since efflux of water, minerals, and water-bound organisms leaving each watershed (and leaving the entire forest as well) can be monitored, the effects of changes experimentally introduced into the system can be measured.
Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study
For the first five or six years after its establishment the HBEF was used for research in forestry but soon its value for study of the forest ecosystem was recognized and it attracted the interest of researchers from major universities. The work at Hubbard Brook has led researchers there and elsewhere to try to model or better understand the complex forest ecosystem, including its interaction with humans. HBEF research teams have succeeded in elucidating a number of vexing environmental problems, most notably the harmful effects of
acid rain
Acid rain is rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it has elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH). Most water, including drinking water, has a neutral pH that exists between 6.5 and 8.5, but acid ...
. The forest preservation the research promotes helps to protect watershed chemistry, ambient humidity, seasonal temperature fluctuations, and wildlife habitats.
History
![Gene Likens in Lab 2015 Mariel Carr](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Gene_Likens_in_Lab_2015_Mariel_Carr.JPG)
The idea for using the small watershed approach being used at Hubbard Brook for studies of elemental budgets and cycles was born with Professor
F. Herbert Bormann
F. Herbert Bormann (March 24, 1922 – June 7, 2012) was an American plant ecologist whose 1971 research within the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire with fellow scientists was credited with the discovery of acid rain. His ...
of
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
, who began taking his botany classes for field trips to this area of the
White Mountain National Forest
The White Mountain National Forest (WMNF) is a federally managed forest contained within the White Mountains in the northeastern United States. It was established in 1918 as a result of the Weeks Act of 1911; federal acquisition of land had alrea ...
in the early 1950s, and Forest Service scientist Robert Pierce. Bormann proposed to Pierce that the area set aside by the Forest Service for watershed studies be used for closed-system ecological studies.
In 1960, soon after the establishment of HBEF, ecologist
Gene Likens
Gene Elden Likens (born January 6, 1935) is an American limnologist and ecologist. He co-founded the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in 1963, and founded the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbro ...
and geologist Noye Johnson, both from Dartmouth, joined the research team. In 1963, the group received a $60,000 grant from the
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
to study "Hydrological-Mineral Cycle Interaction in a Small Watershed". This study evolved into the series of longitudinal studies now referred to as the "Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study", or HBES. The early ecosystem monitoring was aimed at studying the effects of
forest management Forest management is a branch of forestry concerned with overall administrative, legal, economic, and social aspects, as well as scientific and technical aspects, such as silviculture, protection, and forest regulation. This includes management for ...
practices on water flow and quality. These data have been helpful as baselines for the increasingly sophisticated areas of ongoing research in the forest. HBES has spawned over 2000 scientific papers, perhaps most important a 1968 study that documented the widespread presence of "
acid rain
Acid rain is rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it has elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH). Most water, including drinking water, has a neutral pH that exists between 6.5 and 8.5, but acid ...
". HBRF was designated as a Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in 1988 and has some of the longest on-going ecological datasets.
Currently the study comprises researchers from multiple universities, including
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
,
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
,
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
,
Syracuse University
Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...
,
SUNY ESF
The State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) is a public research university in Syracuse, New York focused on the environment and natural resources. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) s ...
, the
University of New Hampshire
The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, mo ...
,
Keene State College
Keene State College is a public liberal arts college in Keene, New Hampshire. It is part of the University System of New Hampshire and the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. Founded in 1909 as a teacher's college (originally, Keene Norma ...
and the
University of Vermont
The University of Vermont (UVM), officially the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont. It was founded in 1791 and is amon ...
. The Hubbard Brook Research Foundation provides housing for research assistants at nearby Pleasant View Farm and recently completed the purchase of cottages for visiting and resident scientists around Mirror Lake, the point at which Hubbard Brook exits the experimental forest.
Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest is the most recently added research forest under
USFS
The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency in ...
jurisdiction for hydrologic studies in the eastern and southern United States.
Hubbard Brook ecosystem
![Mirror Lake 2015 Mariel Carr crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Mirror_Lake_2015_Mariel_Carr_crop.jpg)
Located in the
White Mountain National Forest
The White Mountain National Forest (WMNF) is a federally managed forest contained within the White Mountains in the northeastern United States. It was established in 1918 as a result of the Weeks Act of 1911; federal acquisition of land had alrea ...
in central New Hampshire, within the town of
Woodstock
Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...
, the bowl-shaped forested valley has hilly terrain, ranging from in altitude. The forest comprises nine individual watersheds, each of which drains into Hubbard Brook which flows eastward into the
Pemigewasset River
The Pemigewasset River , known locally as "The Pemi", is a river in the state of New Hampshire, the United States. It is in length and (with its tributaries) drains approximately . The name "Pemigewasset" comes from the Abenaki word ''bemijijoase ...
near
West Thornton. The outlet from Mirror Lake, a much-studied pond and recreation site, flows south into Hubbard Brook just before the brook passes under Interstate 93.
Forest
The forest is mostly a "second-growth" mix of northern hardwoods (80 to 90%) and red spruce-balsam fir (10 to 20%). Beech, yellow birch, and sugar maple experience their greatest importance at , , and , respectively, with paper birch, fir, and spruce at 720m to treeline (>). Mountain maple, striped maple, and mountain ash characterize the understory at various elevations, with mountain maple being ubiquitous. Five of the seven canopy species are valued for various reasons. Harsh winter conditions do not allow for rapid recovery, unlike more humid climates that recover net primary productivity within years, the northeastern version needs decades and in the case of the forest floor possibly centuries to recover. The forest was partly cleared for agriculture starting in the late 18th century and was also logged. By 1920 over 200 million board feet (470,000 m³) of timber had been harvested from the valley.
Soils
Soil is predominantly well-drained spodosol derived from glacial till, with sandy loam textures, combining to produce an evident, but narrow E horizon. The forest floor is characterized by the complete suite of taxonomic subhorizons, has been classified as mor type humus, with mull occurring beneath maple stands at lower elevations (). It is acidic (pH about 4.5 or less) and relatively infertile for agricultural purposes. Aluminum and iron are preferentially leached from the upper soil horizons to an underlying layer(s) that is characteristic of the soil order. Hence, silica is retained and at times mixes with the forest floor. Soil depths are highly variable, with shallow strands of organic matter comprising the entire profile at higher elevations (folist) or underlain by sandy unsorted material (podzol).
Climate
Annual precipitation averages about , with one-third to one-quarter as snow. January averages about -9 °C and the average July temperature is 18 °C. The forest averages 145 frost-free days per year.
Areas of research
# Hydrology, including ecosystem water flow, snowfall analysis, and long-term ice-in/ice-out measurements
# Environmental factors encouraging or restricting tree growth, and effects of deforestation on mineral flux
# Effects of environmental changes on bird behavior and insect population, especially regarding reproductive capacity
# Effects of acid rain and resultant soil mineral changes on micro-environments of plant root systems
# Cycling of Nitrogen, Sulfur, Phosphorus, Mercury, Calcium, and Carbon, and effects of pollution on flux of these and other minerals
Hubbard Brook Research Foundation
The Hubbard Brook Research Foundation supports the work of the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study, which is conducted at the USDA Forest Service's Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire's White Mountain National Forest. HBRF supports research by maintaining facilities for housing, meetings, and laboratory work. The Foundation also helps transmit the findings of the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study to policymakers, opinion leaders, and other members of the public through its ''Science Links'' program, which translates science from peer-reviewed scientific articles and conducts a variety of education and outreach activities.
Annual symposium
Each summer, Hubbard Brook scientists and experts from afar gather at the base station for a 2-day colloquium to present and discuss ongoing research. Approximately 150 scientists and students attend the program, which features eighty-odd 10-minute presentations in which participants openly criticize and contribute new ideas to each presenter's findings.
References
External links
Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study websiteHubbard Brook Research FoundationUSDA/National Forest Service regional website
{{Coord, 43, 56, 42, N, 71, 43, 11, W, type:forest, display=title
Ecological experiments
Natural history of New Hampshire
Former biosphere reserves of the United States
Research forests