Big congratulations to Darby—her first dissertation chapter has just been published in Global Change Biology Communications! The paper, “Increasing Respiration Weakens the Carbon Sink Over Two Decades in a Temperate Deciduous Forest,” synthesizes 20 y of flux measurements from Bartlett Experimental Forest, New Hampshire. The key result is that net ecosystem productivity (NEP) is showing a strong declining trend over the period 2004-2023. For the last three years, Bartlett has been a net source of CO2 to the atmosphere. Darby’s analysis shows that this shift in NEP is related to warmer winters and increasing ecosystem respiration. Her paper is one of just a handful published to date with 20 y of flux measurements.
Andrew, his postdoc advisor Dave Hollinger (USDA Forest Service, retired), and Dave’s technician Bob Evans (USDA Forest Service, retired) built the tower late in 2003 and instrumented it for eddy covariance measurements in January 2024 (Darby was in first grade at the time). The AmeriFlux site been running (most of the time!) ever since, thanks to assistance from many different people over the years including Scott Ollinger, Andy Ouimette, Chris Costello, Trevor Keenan, and Don Aubrecht.
The pictures below document some of the first 10 y at Bartlett. Top row: a much younger Andrew working on the tower (2004), looking down from the top of the tower (2012), looking west from the top of the tower to Crawford Notch (2012), the instrument shed at the base of the tower (2004), and early UAV imagery (2014) from Andrew’s former PhD student Steve Klosterman (the tower is clearly visible left of center).
