Current Events
The New England Botanical Club has cancelled the April and May monthly meetings of the organization because of the coronavirus pandemic. The "away meeting" planned for Yale-Myers Forest in Connecticut in late May has also been cancelled. We will be monitoring the situation over the summer and will plan to restart club meetings and activities once conditions improve. Future decisions will be posted here.
Congratulations to the 2020 Junior Faculty Award Winner
Dr. Jay Watson, Assistant Professor of Forest Ecosystem Physiology, University of Maine, School of Forest Resources, Orono, Maine, for his project entitled "Drought timing impacts on chlorophyll content and photosynthesis in New England trees."
Abstract: Despite predictions for increased annual precipitation in New England, warming temperatures and variability in the timing and amount of rainfall in individual events is expected to lead to more extreme droughts. However, most native forest trees in New England rarely experience drought and therefore may not be well adapted to future conditions. The goal of this research is to determine how droughts occurring at different times of year will impact the growth, survival, and physiology of native tree saplings. The DroughtTIME study (Drought Timing Impacts in Maine) at the University of Maine includes 288 saplings of Betula papyrifera, Acer rubrum, Prunus serotina, Thuja occidentalis, Pinus strobus, and Juniperus virginiana. Each sapling is individually irrigated to simulate one of four treatments: no drought, spring drought, summer drought, or late-summer drought. Throughout each drought, graduate and undergraduate students will track height and diameter growth, soil moisture, plant hydration, leaf chlorophyll content, and leaf photosynthetic efficiency. With these data we will determine how the timing of drought drives declines in plant hydration and relate that directly to leaf physiology, growth, and survival to better understand how New England forest trees may respond to future climate conditions.
