Annual Conferences

The 2013 Annual Conference, attended by over 100 people, included a keynote by Dr. Jon Erickson of UVM, presentations from all three Agency of Natural Resources Commissioners and two US Forest Service officials on the barriers and opportunities to collaboration in forest ecosystem monitoring and research. VMC has made videos and abstracts available on the meeting website, and a full proceedings was published in early 2014.

The morning plenary will feature an array of presenters from various disciplines speaking to the relationship between forests and watersheds, including metrics or strategies employed to inform forest management and how these influence watershed condition. A question-and-answer panel made up of the speakers will allow the morning speakers to explore these topics in more depth. As in past years, the afternoon will be devoted to concurrent sessions where collaborators from across the region can present their most recent work, a variety of working group sessions convened by members of our professional community, and a poster session and social hour.

As the VMC celebrates its 25th year of environmental monitoring we are taking stock of how long-term data can be used to keep us apprised of the condition of our forested ecosystem, identify emerging threats and inform planning and management decisions. This year we focus on the long-term records of many of our VMC collaborators. The morning plenary will feature invited presentations from experts in various disciplines synthesizing the long- term trends in their data and implications for the forested ecosystem. As in past years, the afternoon will be devoted to concurrent sessions where collaborators from across the region can present their most recent work, followed by a variety of working group sessions convened by members of our professional community.

This year, VMC partnered with the UVM Natural Areas Program to deliver a joint conference around the theme of translating research and monitoring findings into actionable change. Attended by over 150 individuals, the conference featured a plenary delivered by policy-makers on how to increase the impact of research at multiple scales, delivered an expanded set of contributed talks, and featured self-designed working group sessions in the afternoon, including a planning session on the future Mt. Mansfield Science and Stewardship Center, a convening of the Vermont Water Monitoring Council, and a solicitation by the Agency of Natural Resources for ways to augment the use of science at the agency. VMC has once again published a proceedings of the event and made most of the videos and presentations from the day available on the meeting page.

Although acid deposition is not a new problem, its impacts are still cycling through Vermont’s forests, waterbodies and soils. Rich Scheffe from the EPA led the morning presentations followed by scientists from Vermont highlighting the effects of acidification in Vermont’s forests and waterbodies. The afternoon session gave Cooperators a chance to hear about each other’s work. There was a special appearance by Dave Bloniarz of i-Tree fame and a panel discussion at the conclusion of the meeting.

Appropriately held on Halloween, this meeting focused on invasive species in Vermont. Dean Thomas Vogelmann of UVM College of Agriculture and life scientists gave a fascinating talk about how Climate Change favors certain species, many not native to Vermont. The Commissioners of DEC and FPR weighed in on invasives and there was news from VMC Cooperators. A panel discussion on invasives was moderated by RSENR’s Deanne Wang.

The theme says it all, how can monitoring predict future health of forested ecosystems? Brian Mitchell from the National Park Service gave the keynote on how this might be accomplished. There were presentations by long time VMC cooperators and a panel discussion on the meeting’s theme moderated by Kimberly Wallin of the USFS and RSENR.

The VMC presented its cooperatively produced synthesis report, Vermont’s Changing Forests at this meeting. The report’s editor, David Sleeper of Hubbard Brook Research Foundation, was the featured speaker and a student panel discussed their perspective on achieving sustainability. Presentations by VMC cooperators and staff from the Green Mountain National Forest and the Lake Champlain basin program were also featured.

Robert Paquin from Senator Leahy’s office reflected on 18 years of VMC history and Larry Forcier filled in admirably for Dr. F. Herbert Bormann of Yale who was unable to attend. This meeting focused on carbon from the different angles of cycling, sequestration, land use planning and biomass for energy. Policy was also considered in the role government plays in reducing fossil fuel dependence.

Dr. Charles Cogbill pondered what a “pristine” forest ecosystem looks like considering all the changes in species types and the landscape itself over time; we got an update from Randy Morin of USFS on the current health of Vermont forests, Dr. Timothy Perkins and Dr. William Keaton presented different research that highlighted the effect of climate on sugaring and forestry into the future. Updates from 3 cooperators rounded out the meeting.

Presentations at this meeting ranged from using remote sensing to detect invasive Honeysuckle in the Taconic Mountains to a perspective on what long-term monitoring really is from USDA soil scientist Tom Villars. A web-based tool for assessing tree health to inform natural resource professionals was unveiled at this meeting along with other presentations and updates from cooperators.

This meeting focused on core VMC cooperators who presented information about the status of their monitoring efforts in Vermont. We heard from Beverly Wemple about the paired watershed study, two presentations on different aspects of mercury contamination from Neil Kamman and Eric Miller, and presentations from Sandy Wilmot on forest health and Barbara Schultz (formerly Burns) on Forest Tent Caterpillar. William Keeton shared data from his Vermont Forest Ecosystem Demonstration project.

The mercury session featured special guest Jerald Keeler from the University of Michigan School of Public Health and VMC collaborator. Eric Miller presented his original research on mercury and forest canopy, Neil Kamman summarized mercury studies in Vermont watersheds and Chris Rimmer of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies showed results from his work with montane birds. A session on VMC- sponsored long term monitoring projects followed then Melody Burkins envisioned the future of the VMC and invited the attendees to participate during an open discussion.

This meeting had several “sub-themes” with presentations on each. Time for discussion was built into the agenda. The sub-themes were watersheds, atmospheric Influences, biodiversity watch, biodiversity, and soils with the 200 Year Soil Monitoring Project being implemented. The remainder of the meeting was given over to the many facets of the Forest Ecosystem Management Project. Other highlights were Forest Sensitivity Mapping and the Paired Watershed Study.

Along with excellent presentations from VMC cooperators this meeting stood out because of two sessions where attendees got together to hash out how to do collaborative science. The morning sessions were designed to feed into the two concurrent sessions, after which plenary session was held to chart the way forward. Some of the collaborations forged at this meeting are still active. Notes from the Mercury Working Group are available.