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Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies recently welcomed senior scientist Amy Zanne. Zanne is working to refine our understanding of how carbon moves through forests, savannas, grasslands, mountains, steppes, and polar deserts. She examines the fate of carbon stored in plants, including dead wood.

Attitudes about fire management in the park are captive to both legacies of the past and expectations of future risk. Both of those are poor foundations for wise and effective fire policy. The conditions that led to past fires are not necessarily present today, and there is enormous uncertainty about how climate change will alter future fire risk.

In the matter of the proposed revision of the Endangered Species Act, we should strongly oppose the removal of the word “harm” from the list of prohibited actions against threatened and endangered species. As written, the Act prohibits actions that “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture and collect” threatened and endangered organisms.

Plant phenology—the timing of plants’ life cycle events such as spring leaf development and fall senescence—controls photosynthesis duration and affects global carbon cycling.

Climatologist Dr. Michael Mann reviews the evidence for human influence on the climate, including measurements available for the past two centuries and paleoclimate observations spanning more than a millennium.

Cary Institute’s Gary Lovett discusses how several invasive species are ravaging regional forests.

Cary Institute’s Geoff Wilson, who manages field and laboratory operations at the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study in New Hampshire, wanted to find out what might be causing Northeastern snowpacks to shrink. His new study, published in PLOS Climate in December, pins the blame on faster melting, rather than lower snowfall. 

Though no one may be around to hear when a tree falls in the forest, countless critters take note. Dormant fungi within the tree awaken to feast on it, joined by others that creep up from the soil. Bacteria pitch in, some sliding along strands of fungi to get deeper into the log. Bit by bit, deadwood is decomposed, feeding new life along the way.

Take a trip to the tropics with Cary Institute scientist Dr. Evan Gora, a forest ecologist exploring the fate of some of the world’s largest trees.

John Fitzpatrick, Director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, discusses the role birds play in fostering the conservation of biodiversity.

Natural world images collected by communities of enthusiast volunteers provide a vast and largely uncurated data source. For instance, iNaturalist has over 200 million images tagged with species labels, already contributing immensely to research such as biodiversity monitoring and having been cited in over 4,000 scientific papers.

The rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations from human activity is projected to lead to a 2-4°C increase globally by the end of the 21st century. This increase has far-reaching consequences for plant community structure and soil carbon storage.

Dave Strayer, a freshwater ecologist at the Cary Institute,discusses the organization’s Hudson River Research Program, the river’s environmental recovery, and challenges that need to be met.

Dr. Angelica Patterson discusses her research on how different tree species are responding to warming temperatures, which are most tolerant, competing stressors, and what this means for future carbon storage.

In this first webinar of a three-part series, participants will learn more about the Urban Critical Zone (UCZ) data from the scientists and researchers who are leading the data collection charge. 

Urban Critical Zone Data Jam participants will learn strategies for supporting students as they determine the best way to create a visual representation of their selected data, as well as interpret and analyze the information presented in the visualization. 

Eastern forests are responsible for 85% of all the carbon taken up by US forests. But they are becoming increasingly stressed by warming temperatures, which can slow their growth and reproduction. How can forest managers maintain the eastern forest carbon sink under these changing conditions?  A recent paper by scientists at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies explores how eastern forests are responding to climate change, how disturbances such as harvesting and pests can help or hinder climate adaptation, and what it all means for carbon storage. The study was published in Ecosystems in January. 

Getting zapped with millions of volts of electricity may not sound like a healthy activity, but for some trees, it is, according to a new study. Published in New Phytologist, the study finds that some tropical tree species are not only able to tolerate lightning strikes, but benefit from them. The trees may have even evolved to act as lightning rods.

Angie Wu is an Assistant Field Manager and helps with all things field campaigns in the Forest Futures Lab. She holds a B.A. in Physical Geography and a B.S. in Molecular Environmental Biology from UC Berkeley, where she used plant functional traits and stable isotopes to research ecophysiological processes in native California tree species.