The Plant Press

From The Plant Press, Vol. 23, No. 2, April 2020.

ForestGEO network welcomes three new plots

ForestGEO, a Smithsonian-led global network of large-scale, long-term forest research sites, is pleased to welcome three new plots to its ranks. The Ailaoshan plot is in a montane forest in subtropical China; the Niobrara plot and the Indian Cave plot encompass the forest-prairie transition zone in Nebraska, USA. There are now 70 ForestGEO research sites. 

Min Cao, Principal Investigator for the new Ailaoshan plot (and also for Xishuangbanna, an extant ForestGEO plot), established the site with his research and field crew teams in 2014. They have undertaken two censuses of the 20-hectare plot and report over 44,000 free-standing stems (of plants with a diameter at breast height (dbh) ≥ 1cm) that span 104 species – the most dominant species being within the Fagaceae, Theaceae, and Lauraceae families.

Sabrina Russo has long been an active member of the ForestGEO network, notably through her mentorship at ForestGEO’s annual analytical workshops, and now as the principal investigator for Niobrara and Indian Cave. Niobrara is a 20.16-ha plot located at the northern border of the Nebraska-South Dakota border. The field crew finished its first census in July 2019 and noted the presence of both paper birch (Betula paperifera) and Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), a rarity for Nebraska. The crew was poised to complete Indian Cave’s first census in the spring of 2020. The 18.40-ha plot contains eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis), two cherry species (Prunus virginiana, P. serotina), catalpa (Catalpa speciosa), and pale dogwood (Cornus amomum). It is located in the south-east corner of the state.