Summer Research – the Bugs are out in Full Force

Cameron, Sarah and Rose spent several days in the field this week exploring sites for new research projects. At Goodwin College’s Keeney Cove property along the Connecticut River they battled forests of poison ivy and swarms of mosquitoes (Cameron’s magical shirt kept him bite free – Rose ended up with over 50 nibbles), where they looked at locations for long term floodplain monitoring with Goodwin’s Bruce Morton and Nels Barrett of the NRCS. They also visited Scott Smedley’s compost pile/stone wall research plots in Andover and surveyed invasive plant-filled forest sites for their potential to be restored as habitat for the nearly endangered New England cottontail rabbit.

Summer Research in the White Mountains of New Hampshire

Jon Gourley and his two students, Justin and Dan, are spending the week in the White Mountain sampling soils in soon to be clear-cut forest areas. Asides from being very fashionable in their fancy ENVS T-shirts, they claim to have sampled over 200 soil samples for nutrient analyses. Once analyzed, these samples will form a baseline for soil nutrient content and how soil nutrients are affected by clear cutting.