Local Permanent Forest Plots (and related data)

1. The North Madison watershed. (west of Rt. 79 in North Madison CT.,)

This is a 2.4 hectare watershed which we surveyed in with a transit in 1970 and measured all the trees in 10 x 10 m plots. We have revisited and substudied parts of the area at intervals since then. This is the site at which we plan to set up Fred Meyersons’ “class of ‘80” MAB permanent hectare plot. The land is owned by the Water Authority and the watershed has been specifically set aside as a conservation area by the Water Authority management plan. The forest is mixed oak on shallow granite g neiss soils - the typical blah woods of CT. The site is way back in the woods and very isolated from highways and developed land. There was a vague dream at the time(1970) that we would/could use this well defined small watershed in the same context as H ubbard Brook.

2. The Hosley Ave. swamp. (east of Hosley Ave. in Branford CT.)

This red maple swamp lies just to the north of the active “peatland” farm adjacent to I-95 just west of lake Saltonstall. The land is owned by the Water Authority. We have used it frequently for soils classes because it is a drained peatla nd. This peat is unusual in that it is neutral to alkaline. We have one long permanent forest transact and a set of non- permanent plots which we set out along various transects across the swamp. We have set up and monitor the water table in a set of 1 2 wells. This will be our third year of doing this. We started this to see the effect of the farmland /agricultural drainage on the water table in the adjacent forested land. We also have tree cores from representative subareas of the swamp. The tree s on the main transect are tagged and we are doing this in cooperation with the CT. Agr Station. We also have made a morphometric map of the shape of the basin using probes along transects. The peat is over 10 m deep and is alkaline at depth. We set the se plots up in 1994. This land is categorized as “potential agriculture” by the water authority since it is good peat land, is mostly already drained, and was in agriculture before the Water Company took title to it in the 1870’s.

3. Totoket Mt/ Lake Gaillard (the west slope of Totoket Mt in North Branford, CT.)

In this study we have established two very long continuous transacts. One starting down near Crooked Brook and extending northwest to the top of the ridge. Another starts from point 4 along this transect and extends a km or so northeast. The co ntiguous plots are 6 m wide and 30 m long. Each 30 m point is marked with a rock cairn. The forest is a mixed deciduous forest (mostly) with oaks and maples. Some areas of hemlock are crossed in the transect. We set up these plots in 1992 and 1993. This is also Water Authority land under normal forest management. The deer have cleaned out the understory. We have been operating a set of litter fall collectors here for the past 3 years and are also measuring decomposition rates using tethered bags of litter.. We have a set of tree cores. Our objective here was to look at changes in species diversity along the contour vs across the contour. This land is on the broad, evenly sloping “dip slope” of the Totoket Mt. basalt. Soils are very shallow to ledg e.

4. Saltonstall Ridge. (East Haven, CT.)

We set up a series of transects which run from the west up and over the ridge down to the lake. I think there are 10 transects 10 m wide. We set permanent metal stakes but the trees are not marked. The west side is a mixed hemlock hardwood fores t and the east side (more southeast) is dominated by hickories and oaks. These are shallow soils over basalt. This set of plots make for a very dramatic contrast in the effect of aspect on the forest composition. The (southeast side) is a very dry rock y site while the northwest side is a much more mesic forest. We have been told by Bob Hart (Water Authority forester) that the trees on the west side are so full of bullets from the firing range that the loggers don’t want them. I think these are fossi l bullets, not from the present National Guard range.

5. Sea hill (North Branford, CT.)

Sea Hill is a classic drumlin. The forest is owned and actively managed by the Water Authority. The forest is a mixed hardwood - oak, maple and beech with some hickory. We first studied this in 1974 at which time we did 44 plots each 60 m long a nd placed at 30 m intervals all around the hill. The plots are set to measure the mid slope of the drumlin. In 1996 we have remeasured the area with 29 plots (one every 60 m). These plots are marked with a metal tag at the base a tree which is located at the downhill side of each transect/plot. The plots were surveyed in with a compass. We have wood chemistry and tree ring data for most of the species from this area. We got a publication out of this area in 1974 based on the opportunistic science of t he effect of a major ice storm on the forest - we compared the degree of damage to trees with vines with those trees without vines.

6. The North Madison Cedar Swamp ( North Madison, CT.)

We have been using the North Madison cedar swamp for many years. This is a big and very beautiful, closed canopy, Atlantic white cedar swamp. We have a lot of tree core data from there and we have established two sets of permanent plots, one in 1990 and another in 1992. These plots are marked with a 10 foot copper pipe stuck down in the peat and tagged at the top with an aluminum tag. This is one of the places that it is impossible to explain where the plots are since they start out in the m idst of the cedar forest thicket. The north Madison cedar swamp is owned and managed as a conservation area by the regional Water Authority. The cedars are up to 180 years old. One of the really cool aspects of the swamp is the great production of metha ne which lights with a roar when the methane lens is punctured at about 1.5 m depth on the south end. We have one major publication from the site dealing with the study of the retranslocation of Ca and Mg at the sapwood/heartwood boundary -once thought to be a no-no in the dogma of Ca and Mg ecophysiochemistry. The swamp is developed on 10 or more meters of peat and is in the late successional stage of bog development. The basin is not a kettle hole, but an ice block depression dammed by a drumlin on the west, ledge on the east and a drumlin and massive till on the south and south east. There is an ephemeral stream which comes in from the northeast and flows out to the northwest. This effects very little of the wetland and the site is an ombrotroph ic peatland.

7. The Quinnipiac River floodplain. (North Haven, Ct.)

These are a number of non-permanent transect type plots which criss-cross the floodplain of the Quinnipiac river. We did 30 of these plots in each of two different portions of the floodplain. The sampling intensity is great enough to represen t maybe 50 % of the total site. This forest assay was done in conjunction with a wood chemistry project in 1995. This is the most diverse forest I know of, with more than 28 tree and large shrub species in less than a hectare.

8. The North Haven Pitch Pines ( North Haven, CT,.)

This pitch pine dominated forest (pines are up to 125 years old) lies just north of the Blue Cross Building and west of I-91. The land is owned by the town and administered by the town conservation commission. I set up a number of arbitrarily (ra ndom) 10 x 10 m plots here is 1973 and redid them again in 1983. The site is one of the last remnants of the xeric oak pitch pine forest and open grassland which occupied the North Haven area on the outwash sands in presettlement times. Other remnants a re on the Amer. Cyanamid land and in the Warton Brook State park. This particular tract is a very mature forest with a canopy of pitch pines. However the long term progression w/o fire is toward oak dominance. There is a thick forest floor and the place is ripe for a fire. We have long- term forest floor and upper mineral soil samples. One of the studies of the upper mineral soil (heavy metals) is in press. It is one of the sites of our regional forest floor monitoring studies. I have two sets of tree cores from the area, one from 1979 and one from the late 80’s.