Spring 2018

When the H.J. Andrews (then Blue River) Experimental Forest was established 70 years ago, the major research emphasis was on planning and conducting harvests of old forests to maximize efficiency and minimize deleterious environmental impacts, particularly on streamflow and water quality. The first research effort was the establishment of paired watershed experiments, which remain a fruitful research legacy to this day. Not surprisingly then, the earliest publication in the Andrews bibliography, dating from 1950 and authored by Bob Ruth and Roy Silen, states the rationale for road layout in staggered-setting clear-cutting systems. This work was based on experience from developing road networks and harvest plans for five experimental areas in the Coast Range and Cascades, including our Lookout Creek watershed.  
     Two primary motivations cited by Ruth and Silen for replacing industry-style, large, continuous clear-cuts with staggered-setting clear-cuts were: 1) improved tree regeneration by seeding from adjacent uncut stands, and 2) reduced potential for spread of future wildfire by burning the slash in the cutting units. Careful thought is reflected in the Research Note, including detailed considerations of ways to design the road network and logging systems to minimize erosion.  
     Yet, reading this paper today, one can pick out words and phrases—such as sidecasting in road construction—that foreshadow unintended consequences. Debris flows initiate at roads at many times the rate of the surrounding forest. This has been particularly true at Watershed 3 where debris flows originating at roads scoured out the stream network and destroyed the gauging stations in the 1964 and 1996 floods.  
     Another side effect of the staggered-setting harvest system that still resonates today is forest landscape fragmentation, and the edge effects at clearcut-forest boundaries inherent in such a landscape. Recent research by David Bell, Tom Spies, and Rob Pabst demonstrates that edge effects from clearcutting on biomass of the surrounding forest penetrate farther than one might imagine and persist for at least 60 years.  By combining data from our network of long-term forest plots with high-precision forest structural mapping enabled by LIDAR (light ranging and detection) remote sensing, they mapped forest basal area across the entire Andrews landscape. Their analysis revealed that the staggered-setting clear-cutting system reduced forest basal area in unharvested areas within 75 meters of clearcuts by 4-6%.  This was true whether the harvest had occurred relatively recently or in the 1950s. Given the dense road network required by the original harvest plan for the Andrews Forest, this means that 20% of the unharvested forest in our watershed displays persistent edge effects on forest biomass. These findings illustrate the complexity of managing forested landscapes for multiple values, including timber harvest. One of the benefits of working at a long-term ecological research site is the capacity to track disturbance processes, both of management and natural origins, that can take decades or centuries to unfold. 

With his pipe firmly planted between his teeth, Norm Anderson was a cornerstone of the Stream Team for many decades. He teamed up with Jim Hall to make the Andrews Forest-based stream program a major feature of the Conifer Forest biome in the early 1970s and was a stabilizing force with colleagues Jim Hall, Jim Sedell, and Stan Gregory. His focus on organisms—mainly caddisflies—was an important contribution in the ecosystem-focused world of Andrews science. With students and senior colleagues, he conducted long-term field and laboratory studies of phenology, life histories, and disturbance ecology of single areas or single species. He reared a population of Clistoronia magnifica caddisflies in the laboratory for 30 generations over 14 years. A long-time professor of aquatic ecology at Oregon State, Norm “retired” in 1995 only to study in detail the insects in his Corvallis backyard streams. Norm passed away at 84 years in January 2018. He will be missed as friend, colleague, and mentor. 

Sarah Kelly recently graduated from Oregon State University with an M.A. in Environmental Arts & Humanities. Sarah led aspects of the Discovery Trail program at the Andrews Forest for her research project. She coordinated field trips for groups of middle and high school students to engage with the forest via a digitally-delivered Discovery Trail curriculum, which combines arts, humanities and conservation science content. Sarah qualitatively analyzed student responses to understand their experience on the Discovery Trail and interpreted shifts resulting from the interdisciplinary curricular program. Her analysis led to a conceptual progression of care about the students’ relationship to place. At the first phase, students were self-oriented and responded positively to place because the Discovery Trail experience and the forest itself made them feel restored. At the final stage, students expressed a responsibility to care for place. Prior to graduate school, Sarah directed the University of Houston sustainability program. She graduated from UH with a B.A. in Communications and a minor in World Cultures and Literatures.

Each summer the Andrews Forest research program is host to several undergraduate students who are participants in the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) opportunity, funded by the National Science Foundation. REU students are paired with faculty and graduate student mentors and spend ten weeks in the field and laboratory engaged in ecological research. With faculty guidance, students design and implement individual projects, collect and analyze data, and present their findings. In summer 2017, the Andrews Forest program hosted REU students who worked across research areas—small carnivores, the Detrital Inputs and Removal Treatment (DIRT) project, conservation ethics, open-source complex sensor station technology, and water transport and retention in forest soils. In 2018, REU students will work on mammalian ecology, canopy ecology, and stream ecology. For many REU students, the experience is the springboard to graduate school. Lauren Roof, an REU participant in 2017 with mentors Steve Wondzell and Karla Jarecke, reported, “I gained a greater understanding of what scientific research is, and this has inspired me to pursue research at the graduate level.”  In fact, many of our previous REU students have gone on to become colleagues and participants across the Long-Term Ecological Research Network. 

A team of field station, marine lab and university scientists published an assessment of the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site programs. They found REU participants were more likely to obtain a doctoral degree in a STEM field, publish research and more.  http://bioscienceaibs.libsyn.com/undergraduate-research-makes-for-better-science?MessageRunDetailID=27849610&PostID=1950679