• Start-up
  • Planning
  • Action
  • Evaluation
The Dartmouth College Second College Grant is participating in a study called the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) Network. The goals of this project are to test different silvicultural approaches to climate change and forest health adaptation that will also serve as useful examples across the U.S. and Canada.
Fourteen scientists and managers sit on a porch at the Second College Grant
A researcher installs a marker for the center of a research plot.
A northern hardwood forest
People standing in a northern hardwood forest
A close up showing the rough bark of a beech tree.
Six people talk in the forest while standing around a large, partially-decomposed tree stump.
A map showing research plot locations.
forest
forest
forest
Map of on-going and proposed ASCC sites, collaborators, and partners.

Project Area

Forests in the Second College Grant.
The Second College Grant is 27,000 acres of forests, rivers, and wetlands in the Northern Forest region of New Hampshire and has been owned and managed by Dartmouth College since 1797. The forest is predominantly rich northern hardwoods dominated by sugar maple, American beech and yellow birch with lesser components of red maple, red spruce, and other species. “The Grant” has long been utilized for timber, but is recognized as a model forest used for wilderness recreation, timber harvesting, and more recently, for forest and natural resource research. The ASCC project implemented at The Grant is one of 4 study sites across the USA using a standardized approach to treatment design and general principles. The installation on the Second College Grant is the second project site to be implemented.

Management Goals

A team of natural resource specialists and researchers familiar with the Second College Grant convened for a three-day workshop in the summer of 2016 to develop the study design for the ASCC project site.  The team developed a set of Desired Future Condition statements, Objectives, and Tactics for each major climate adaptation trajectory (resistance, resilience, transition). These three trajectories are briefly summarized below:

Resistance:

  • Encourage a multi-aged / size structure and maintain quality across all size classes
  • Maintain hydrological cycle and erosion
  • Stable carbon pools with accreting living biomass carbon
  • Maintain/increase vigor and quality of residual trees while maintaining current productivity levels consistent with type

Resilience:

  • Multiple combinations of species composition and structure present (e.g., multiple pathways to recovery from disturbance)
  • High overall tree species and functional diversity with increased component of local species adapted to future climate conditions/disturbance compared to current condition
  • Multiple age classes present
  • Increased amount of biological legacies and dead wood
  • Same growth/productivity as Resistance treatment, but allowing for some deviation/oscillation
  • High production of beech hard mast for wildlife

Transition:

  • Increased dominance of species adapted to future climate change currently on site plus increased proportion of planted species (≥ 20% composition) not currently on site that are better-adapted to future climate change
  • Increased amount of biological legacies and dead wood
  • Increased diversity of tree functional traits

Climate Change Impacts

Key climate change impacts that the project team considered for the Second College Grant included:
Increasing wind and ice events causing damage to tree crowns and other parts of the forest
Increasing moisture stress due to drought as well as above-average precipitation periods, leading to more damage from pests and diseases and potential reduced growth
Loss of key species or functional groups critical for maintaining ecosystem services

Challenges and Opportunities

Climate change will present challenges and opportunities for accomplishing the management objectives of this project, including:

Challenges

Several dominant tree species in these stands, such as sugar maple, are projected to have reduced habitat suitability under future climate scenarios
Dominant tree species face increased threats in the future from introduced insects and diseases

Opportunities

Some tree species found nearby are expected to have increased habitat suitability, including red oak, red maple, white pine, and eastern hemlock
Habitat suitability for yellow birch and red spruce is not expected to change substantially in northern New Hampshire

Adaptation Actions

The ASCC project was designed to explicitly test three different adaptation options: resistance, resilience, and transition. A detailed silvicultural prescription was designed for each adaptation option, which was replicated several times across the study site. Detailed silvicultural prescriptions can be found in the Adaptation Workbook. The study site also includes several no-action "control" stands for comparison. Some of the adaptation tactics employed in this project include:

Area/Topic
Approach
Tactics
Resistance
1.4. Reduce competition for moisture, nutrients, and light.
5.1. Promote diverse age classes.
5.3. Retain biological legacies.
Single-tree selection (70-80 ft2/acre)
Multi-aged cohort
Retain biological legacies
Increase downed dead wood
Resilience
1.4. Reduce competition for moisture, nutrients, and light.
5.2. Maintain and restore diversity of native species.
Group and single-tree selection (20% in gaps of 0.1-0.25 acre in size, 20% in reserves, 70-80 ft2/acre matrix)
Maintain and restore diversity of native species
Increase drought-adapted species (red maple and beech)
Transition
5.1. Promote diverse age classes.
9.7. Introduce species that are expected to be adapted to future conditions.
Variable density thin / irregular shelterwood (20% in gaps of 0.25-1 acre, 10-20% in reserves, 70-80 ft2/acre matrix)
Increase future-adapted, off-site species (northern red oak, bitternut hickory, eastern white pine, eastern hemlock, basswood, black birch, bigtooth aspen, chestnut)

Monitoring

Monitoring is an essential component of the ASCC study site. Research partners from many institutions are working together to investigate the effects of the different silvicultural treatments. Some of the monitoring items include:
Natural regeneration in gaps and harvest areas
Residual tree survival and growth
Songbird and other wildlife community responses
Planted seedling survival and growth
Increased carbon pools through living and downed wood material

Project Documents

Project Videos

Next Steps

Measurements of pre-treatment vegetation, carbon, and wildlife communities, as well as high-resolution LiDAR data were collected across research areas in the summer of 2017. Treatments were implemented in late summer-fall 2017 thanks in large part to the Herculean efforts of Dartmouth College Woodlands. Post-treatment data collections have occurred across 196 permanent plots in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. In addition, several field tours and workshops for forest managers and wildlife biologists have occurred on the site since its installation, including the 2021 UNH Extension Mud Season Breakfast, 2021 Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Northeast Habitat Technical Committee Meeting, and 2023 field tour for resource management staff from the White Mountain National Forest.

Going forward, regular post-treatment monitoring will continue to assess the efficacy of the treatments. The team at the Second College Grant site will continue to analyze and communicate the results of their study to land managers, local landowners, and other scientists via workshops, field tours, and publications to encourage climate-adaptive management based off their successes.

Learn More

Keywords

Assisted migration
Planting
Research
Upland hardwoods

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