Howland Forest
Encyclopedia
Evergreen forest
An temperate evergreen forest is a forest consisting entirely or mainly of evergreen trees that retain green foliage all year round. Such forests exist in the tropics primarily as broadleaf evergreens, and in temperate and boreal latitudes primarily as coniferous evergreens.-Tropical evergreen...
in central Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
, USA, west of the town of Howland
Howland
-Places:In the United States:* Howland, Maine* Howland Township, Trumbull County, Ohio* Howland Island, an uninhabited coral island that is an unorganized territory of the United States...
. The Howland study site is located in a boreal transitional forest. The forest is dominated by mixed spruce, hemlock, aspen and birch stands ranging in age from 45 to 130 years. The soils are formed on coarse-loamy granitic basal till. The tract is part of the 1.1 million acres (4,500 km²) of Maine forest sold in 2005 by International Paper
International Paper
International Paper Company is an American pulp and paper company, the largest such company in the world. It has approximately 59,500 employees, and it is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.-History:...
(IP) to a private forest investment management company.
The tract had previously been designated as a research forest under IP's ownership, attracting researchers from the US Forest Service, the University of Maine
University of Maine
The University of Maine is a public research university located in Orono, Maine, United States. The university was established in 1865 as a land grant college and is referred to as the flagship university of the University of Maine System...
, NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
, NOAA, and the Woods Hole Research Center
Woods Hole Research Center
The Woods Hole Research Center addresses pressing environmental issues, including climate change, through scientific and policy initiatives. The Center has projects in the Amazon, the Arctic, Africa, Russia, Alaska, Canada, New England, and the Mid-Atlantic, working in collaboration with a wide...
. Areas of study included acid rain
Acid rain
Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it possesses elevated levels of hydrogen ions . It can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure. Acid rain is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen...
, nutrient cycling, soil ecology
Soil ecology
Soil ecology is the study of the interactions among soil organisms, and between biotic and abiotic aspects of the soil environment. It is particularly concerned with the cycling of nutrients, formation and stabilization of the pore structure, the spread and vitality of pathogens, and the...
, and more recently, forest carbon uptake and loss. The forest has one of the longest records of carbon flux measurement in the world, dating to 1996, providing important information about carbon sequestration in mature forests. The Howland Forest is a founding member of the AmeriFlux and FLUXNET
FluxNet
FluxNet is a global network of micrometeorological tower sites that use eddy covariance methods to measure the exchanges of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and energy between the biosphere and atmosphere. Fluxnet is a global 'network of regional networks' that serves to provide an infrastructure to...
research networks.