PSU Museum To Host Lecture About Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest

Press release from PSU:

The Museum of the White Mountains at Plymouth State University (PSU) will host the second lecture in its Mountain Voices Lecture Series on Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 7 p.m., via Zoom, with Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies Senior Research Fellow Peter Groffman, Ph.D.. Groffman will present, “Hubbard Brook: Big Insights from a Small Place,” an overview of the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, located in the southwestern part of the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, and the research that has been conducted there, with a focus on why the site is well known and how the watershed approach has been fundamental in environmental science.

Groffman will also discuss the impacts of climate change on the forest, major past discoveries made at the site, such as acid rain, an emerging understanding of forest resiliency and how once-pressing environmental concerns shift when new environmental policies succeed. Groffman’s decades of research focuses on climate effects on ecosystem biogeochemical processes related to carbon and nitrogen cycles.

Groffman is a professor at the City University of New York Advanced Science Research Center and the Earth and Environmental Sciences Program at the Graduate Center, and Brooklyn College Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. Much of his research is based at the Hubbard Brook Long Term Ecological Research site, where he has worked since 1992.

The experimental forest occupies a roughly 7,800-acre bowl-shaped valley that is oriented east–west, with a series of small watersheds occupying the valley’s north- and south-facing slopes. Established in 1963, the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study (HBES) is a long-term collaborative research study that continues to analyze the composition, productivity, biochemistry and food webs of forest and stream ecosystems. Scientists undertake diverse research projects seeking to answer specific questions under the auspices of this larger mission. The results of this research are used to test and revise models of functioning ecosystems in order to inform policy and management decisions, and to bring ecological knowledge to people of all ages and skill levels. The collaborative study has many partnerships, including the USDA Forest Service, the National Science Foundation’s Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) and Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) programs along with scientists from research institutions throughout the world.

The current Museum of White Mountains exhibition, “Field Station: Art-Science in the White Mountains,” is displaying artwork made in collaboration with scientists from the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest. Each of the artists included in the gallery spent significant time in the forest and with scientists, in order to become familiarized with what they were seeing and experiencing. With this knowledge, they were able to create visual and audio works that explore the diversity of the landscape and the dynamic ecosystems found within the forest.

The current Mountain Voices lecture series runs through the spring semester. They are held on the third Thursday of each month at 7 p.m., via Zoom. The lectures are free and open to the public but pre-registration is required. For information about the museum, current exhibits, and to register for the current lecture, visit www.plymouth.edu/mwm.

This press release was produced by PSU. The views expressed here are the author's own.