UMBS Selected as Core Site
AmeriFlux recently announced that the University of Michigan Biological Station, operated by Dr. Gil Bohrer (as part of a collaborative team lead by Peter Curtis from EEOB at OSU, Chris Gough from Virginia Commonwealth University and Knute Nedelhoffer from University of Michigan) has been selected as one of eleven national flux core sites of the Department of Energy. Bohrer's research lab manages the data collection and analysis from the sites as well as remote sensing analysis, ecohydrological measurements and coupled weather and ecosystem modeling.
The core mission of the University of Michigan Biological Station is to advance environmental field research, engage students in scientific discovery using ecosystems and their organismal constituents as objects of study, and provide information needed to better understand and sustain natural systems at local through global scales.
The research objectives of the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS) site are to address questions of ecosystem/atmosphere linkages that are general in nature and which will contribute to large-scale carbon cycle modeling efforts, and to test hypotheses specific to the upper Great Lakes forest ecosystems that will further our understanding of productivity controls over these regionally important communities.
The UMBS site is located within a protected forest owned by the University of Michigan. Arboreal composition of the forest consists of mid-aged northern hardwoods, conifer understory, aspen, and old growth hemlock. Logging of local white pines began in 1879. In successive years, several other species were harvested. Logging was discontinued in 1980 when the land became protected under the private ownership of the University of Michigan. Patchy low- to high-intensity wildfires occurred yearly from 1880 - 1920, essentially burning the entire region.
