[LTER-sbc_help] News from The Hubbard Brook Research Foundation

[Hubbard Brook Research Foundation]

 ‌ ‌ Spring 2020 Promoting the understanding and stewardship of forest ecosystems through scientific research and monitoring, policy outreach, and education Raisa Kochmaruk with a sketch Black-throated green warbler Photo: Francesco Veronesi via Flickr Featured Video Raisa Kochmaruk draws inspiration from birds—quite literally. The rising senior at Cornell University, who is among the Hubbard Brook Field Ornithology Program's first ever cohort, is a talented natural science illustrator for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Museum of Vertebrates. Raisa created the video, “Inspiration to Preserve the Birds,” after reading the landmark Science study detailing the loss of nearly 3 billion birds from the U.S. and Canada. In it, she pairs footage of her speed drawing a black-throated green warbler with an original fiction story about two young birders growing up in different parts of the world. “I wanted to use the emotional pull of the story to grab viewers' attention and then leave them with concrete actions to take so that they felt as if they could be a part of the solution,” Raisa says. Raisa hopes to turn the story into a picture book in the near future. If you’d like to see more of Raisa’s stunningly lifelike illustrations, visit her website: https://mondielle.com/. WATCH Photos From the Field (Click to Enlarge) Note: On-site staffing has been extremely limited since March, with the vast majority of personnel working from home. The Hubbard Brook community depends on a small-but-mighty team of staff members who live locally, maintain the long-term datasets, and keep things running smoothly on a daily basis. We are especially grateful that local staff members have continued to step up during these challenging times by visiting the forest only on an as-needed basis and helping across a wider range of tasks and projects, while practicing safe social distancing. A HUGE thank you to Ian Halm, Tammy Wooster, Geoff Wilson, and Dan Clark! Red trillium Photo: Ian Halm Jack-in-the-pulpit Photo: Tammy Wooster Yes, that is snow in June! Photo: Ian Halm A brief encounter with a moose Video: Tammy Wooster Hubbard Brook headquarters in early May Photo: Ian Halm A barrier hangs across the road to Mirror Lake's public beach Photo: Ian Halm From Ian Halm: The seasons have changed as normal, with the snow melting, the leaves popping, the flowers blooming, and the black flies coming out to visit. The work is the same with collecting data, cleaning weirs, maintaining the site and dealing with the never ending paperwork. The thing that is missing are the people. The visits from researchers, the questions, the teaching of interns. I sure miss that, but I am thankful that in this trying time we are able to continue to collect high quality data. Hopefully next summer we will have the forest invaded by researchers and students again. Featured Article The Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study is among scores of long-term research projects around the world that have been actively strategizing how to balance a responsibility to public health with the need to maintain important, as-yet uninterrupted datasets. Hubbard Brook's black-throated blue warbler research, for example, has been ongoing since the mid 1980s. "The way we're handling it so far is to just make contingency plans," Cornell University ornithologist Mike Webster tells E&E News. That means significantly downsizing the teams that would typically be heading into the field to collect data at this time of year and focusing on the project's most basic priorities. The same strategy applies to other long-term records at Hubbard Brook. "[Our COVID-19] task force is trying to coordinate to make sure that the very minimum basic research does get done to maintain the long-term records...and that the people who do come, that we can maintain social distancing," says HBES Principal Investigator Gary Lovett. READ MORE Lindsey Rustad gives a virtual tour of the Climate Change Across Seasons Experiment Nat Cleavitt reads her children's book, Seeking the Wolf Tree The title slide from Winsor Lowe's presentation for the 5th grade class at Woodstock Elementary School Outreach Highlights Hubbard Brook scientists are finding new and creative ways to engage with students whose classes are being held virtually. Here are just a few examples of how they've been safely reaching out in the age of social distancing: US Forest Service Research Ecologist Lindsey Rustad recorded a virtual tour of the Climate Change Across Seasons Experiment at Hubbard Brook. The 30-minute video introduces concepts about forest ecology and climate change, explains what it's like to be a forest ecologist, and ties into Dr. Rustad's work as a AAAS IF/THEN Ambassador. Vegetation scientist Nat Cleavitt recorded an engaging read aloud of her children's book Seeking the Wolf Tree. Winsor Lowe, Professor of Biology at the University of Montana, Zoomed with the 5th grade class at Woodstock Elementary School to talk all things salamanders. "The 5th graders asked great and challenging questions. Their energy and excitement got to me, even through the internet," says Dr. Lowe. "I loved having an opportunity to tap back into the basic reasons I love doing science: looking for salamanders along beautiful streams and using data to discover surprising (and sometimes confusing) details about ecology and evolution." Fifth grade teacher Allison Green also used some of Dr. Lowe's salamander data in an graphing lesson. Hubbard Brook Researchers in the News  They did research for decades. Then COVID-19 hit E&E News With Ships Docked And Labs Closed, Scientist's Field Research Season Fades Away WBUR Shorter, warmer winters, less snow. What next? Q&A with biologist Pamela Templer    Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Research on Black-Throated Blue Warblers at Hubbard Brook NH Natural Resources Stewards NH Scientists Complete Major Study On How Ice Storms Damage Northern Forests NHPR Cold, wet experiments in New Hampshire forest show that ice storms are worse than we figured Concord Monitor Announcements Please take a moment to read a Message from the LTER Executive Board on Recent Events, available at the following link: https://lternet.edu/stories/message-from-the-lter-executive-board-on-recent-events/ We invite you to join us (virtually) for Hubbard Brook's second annual science storytelling event on July 7, 2020 at 5 pm. Inspired by the Moth, "The Moss" Storytelling Hour features true, candid stories about science told by members of the Hubbard Brook community. The theme of this year's stories is: "IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!" Keep an eye out closer to the date for a Zoom link to the event! As always, thanks for your interest in Hubbard Brook. Please feel free to contact us with any questions, ideas, or suggestions, and help us to spread the word by forwarding this email to a friend. JOIN OUR MAILING LIST VISIT OUR WEBSITE MAKE A DONATION Corporate Sponsors Chester Forest Products Chroma Technology Corp. Durgin & Crowell  Lumber Co., Inc. FORECO LLC King Forest Industries Law Offices of Joyce E. Scott Loveland Forestry The Lyme Timber Company New England Forest Products Northland Forest Products Schiffman, Dattilio & Commpany, P.C. HBRF Trustees Charles Driscoll, Chair, Syracuse University Stan Williams, Vice Chair John Smitka, Secretary   Michael Shoob, Treasurer   Deecie Denison Peter Groffman Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, CUNY Advanced Science Research Center, Brooklyn College Steven Hamburg Environmental Defense Fund Dorothy B. Heinrichs Dartmouth-Hitchcock and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth Roger Larochelle Squam Lakes Conservation Society Gene E. Likens Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies Peter Martin Nicholas Rodenhouse Wellesley College Anant Sundaram Tuck School of Business Dartmouth College  Pamela Templer Boston University  Harriet Van Vleck Lindsey Rustad U.S. Forest Service Anthea Lavallee HBRF Executive Director The Hubbard Brook Research Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study. Hubbard Brook Research Foundation | 30 Pleasant St., Woodstock, VT 05091 Unsubscribe sbc_help at lternet.edu Update Profile | About Constant Contact Sent by sciencelinks at hubbardbrookfoundation.org in collaboration with Try email marketing for free today!
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