![]() ![]() Searching through twenty acres filled with blackberry makes our job a little like finding a needle in a haystack. My field partner, Lowell, and I are fortunate enough to be in charge of tromping through the dense thickets of barbed branches in order to survey what is growing in this new "forest." To do this, we have to locate two-dozen markers, each about a foot high, scattered throughout the twenty-acre field. The forest that once grew here was harvested for timber five years ago and has been growing back ever since. Only five years ago, this field probably looked very much like the typical image of towering trees that is summoned to your mind when you think forest. Monday through Friday, the majority of my time is spent in the middle of a short, shrubby field that makes up for what it lacks in tree canopy with a densely packed, thorny tangle of blackberry and raspberry. ![]() You might imagine that, as a forest ecologist, my summer at the Harvard Forest is spent working somewhere like this. In the emerald shade created by the curtain of leaves above you, the air is cool and filled with the chirping of birds that make themselves at home in the woods. You might imagine yourself surrounded by towering oaks or ash trees with powerful trunks that could be centuries old, under a dense umbrella of endless, green canopy. Picture yourself strolling through a pristine, forest wilderness. ![]()
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