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Harvard Forest (HARV) is a terrestrial NEON field site located approximately 65 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts in the county of Worcester. The 48.1 km² (11,900 acre) site has sampling plots within Harvard Forest (managed by Harvard University and the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program) and the Quabbin Reservoir Watershed (managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation). Regionally, HARV represents a typical northeastern rural/wildland, anchoring an urban-to-rural gradient from suburban areas outside Boston to the wildlands throughout New England, Maine, and New Hampshire. The site's dominant land cover is northern hardwood and coniferous forest, with some areas used for agriculture. HARV is located in the Northeast Domain (D01), which encompasses the New England and northern Eastern Seaboard states along with the northern end of the Appalachian range. D01 includes one other terrestrial site and one aquatic site. HARV is located near the Lower Hop Brook (HOPB) aquatic site. [1] [3]

The climate at HARV is cool and temperate. The mean annual temperature hovers around 7.4°°ä (45°F), with the coldest months averaging around -6.6°C (20°F) and the warmest 20°C (68°F). Precipitation is constant for the year and averages approximately 1080 mm (42.5 in.) per year. Warming temperatures in the northeast have shifted the average winter temperature up 2.5°C (5°F) since the 1960s, resulting in an earlier onset of spring weather. [2] [7]

Harvard Forest is geologically uniform and consists of metamorphic Connecticut Valley Belt schist and gneiss from the Lower Devonian. The metamorphic bedrock is covered with till and glacial fluvial materials. [2] [3] [6] [8]

The soils at HARV are part of the subgroups Oxyaquic and Dystudepts. Till and glacial fluvial soils are common at the site. The soils are typically low in clay, with coarse-loamy, loamy-skeletal, sandy, or sandy-skeletal particle size control sections with some alluvial and colluvial deposits. [3] [6]

Harvard Forest is located in the Quabbin Watershed, which is home to one of the largest freshwater reservoirs in the United States. This area tends to have high spring flows due to spring snowmelt and lower flows during the summer and fall. Most streams are intermittent. The main stream, the east branch of the Swift River, cuts through the Harvard Forests and is a large contributor to the Quabbin Reservoir. [4]

Located in the Worcester ecoregion, vegetation is consistent with those of transition hardwoods-white pine-hemlock forests. Due to historical logging and hurricanes, the forest is second-growth and many of the trees are under 100 years old. The dominant vegetation is regenerating Eastern Deciduous temperate forest comprised of red oak (Quercus rubra), red maple (Acer rubrum), and white pine (Pinus strobus). Understory shrubs, trees, ferns, and flowering herbs are common in areas with higher moisture. [1] [2]

Wildlife typically found in the Harvard Forests include white-tailed deer, black bear, moose, beavers, raptors, migratory birds, salamanders, and turtles. [3] [4]

The nearby town of Peteresham was settled in the early 18th century, a time in which land was extensively cleared and utilized for farming and agriculture. The land was then abandoned and native northeastern hardwoods began to regenerate. Since 1907, the Harvard Forest has focused primarily on research and education; however, timber harvest remained significant in the first 30 years. The Quabbin Reservoir, which acts as the main water supply for the Boston area, began construction in 1930 and was not complete until 1939. [1] [2] [3]

Established in 1907, Harvard Forest has been focused on research, education, recreation, and forest management. The Harvard Forest utilizes a "Wildlands and Woodlands" framework in which the majority of the land base is available for flexible research and recreational use, but 600-700 acres are designated as low-impact wildland reserves or forest management woodlands. As part of its mission of furthering ecological research, Harvard Forest has also been established as a Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site, ForestGEO forest dynamics plot, and NEON site. [5]

The Domain 01 support facility in Fitchburg, MA was constructed in June 2013. Terrestrial observational sampling at HARV began in October 2014, but plot establishment (the process of selecting, ground-truthing and building out plots) was not completed until July 2016. Due to ongoing research occurring at Harvard Forest, plots were selected to avoid any conflicts with existing research. Tower instrumentation was not fully complete until March 2017. The 2006 National Land Cover Database (NLCD) was selected for stratification because of the consistent and comparable data availability across the United States. TOS Tower Plots were allocated according to a spatially balanced design in and around the NEON tower airshed.