Black Rock Forest staff and volunteers started collecting pre-treatment data on the Future of Oak Forests project in 2006. By 2008 a series of manipulations were made across the 12 experimental plots found on the north-facing slope of Black Rock Mountain. A variety of ecological and environmental data has been collected and is available upon request.
List of Projects Associated with The Future of Oak Forests Experiment:
Active Ongoing Projects:
- Impact of foundation species loss on tree community species composition and aboveground biomass.
- Impact of deer herbivory on understory vegetation species composition and recovery from disturbance.
- Assessment of the impact of foundation species loss on productivity using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s)-Shahid Naeem (Columbia University)**
- The portfolio effect in forests: linking tree diversity to forest function- Sarah Bruner (Columbia University)☨
Completed Projects:
- Effect of foundation species loss on the small mammal community
- Effect of foundation species loss /canopy disturbance on ground water chemical composition
- Effect of foundation species loss on nitrogen mineralization in forest soils
- Changes in the microbial soil community after large scale canopy disturbance and the loss of a foundation species
- Effect of canopy disturbance and the exclusion of deer on the forest invertebrate community
- The effect of canopy disturbance on tick distribution and abundance
- Changes in the ant community following large scale canopy disturbance and foundation species loss
- Belowground carbon pools and fluxes in a northern temperate deciduous forest and their response to stand disturbance
**denotes projects headed by collaborators outside of Black Rock Forest.
☨denotes a project funded by the David Redden Conservation Small Grants Program