Discoveries

When temperatures linger around 60 degrees, most people reach for light jackets or flannel shirts; conversely, when the mercury hits 80, we don shorts and short sleeves. Seventy degrees? Well…

There’s no shortage of studies about the effects of timber harvesting on amphibians. And there’s not much discrepancy between studies: generally, the heavier the cut, the fewer frogs,…

When a plant or animal is moved from its native homeland to a new territory, and it thrives to the detriment of native plants and animals in that territory, it’s known as an invasive…

Kermit the Frog once sang, “It’s not easy bein’ green.” His melancholy was well placed. It is not a good time to be a frog: the world over, frogs and other amphibians…

Acid rain leaches calcium and other nutrients from forest ecosystems. In places where soil calcium levels are naturally low, where acid rain inputs are high, or especially where both these…

Tree bark can act as a record of all sorts of events: lightning, fire, mechanical scrapes, and even the brief spark of youthful passion, carved with pocketknife, complete with heart, arrow,…

The adage that your enemies know your weaknesses best is especially true in the case of plants and predators that have co-evolved. As the predators evolve new strategies for attack, plants…

Until a recent study, little was known about the effects of intensive forestry practices on snowshoe hares in northern forests. After studying hare populations following precommercial thinning…

It’s easy to blame your parents if you’re shy or reckless or overly self-critical. Nature may play a role, but nurture (or junior high) is most often the culprit when it comes to…

Hemlock woolly adelgid, the tiny but mighty scourge of hemlocks from Tennessee to as far north as southern Maine and New Hampshire, may soon face a worthy adversary: University of Vermont…

As chronic wasting disease hovers at our doorstep, recent discoveries about how this disease spreads – and the parts of the deer it affects – should raise our collective alert…

Brook trout are often cited as “indicator species” of stream health. They require clean, cold water, so finding them in abundance means you have an especially healthy stream. A…

The results are in from a long-term study that has been measuring the response of sugar maples to calcium addition at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire. They confirm…

A new study conducted by The Heinz Center, a national environmental and economic think tank, analyzes greenhouse-gas emissions from magazine and lumber production – from tree to final…

While many of us shy away from the sunlight’s ultraviolet (UV) rays, male raptors may rely on that light to find their mates. Research by Francois Mougeot and Beatriz Arroyo from the…

When a non-native plant appears on the scene, resource managers sometimes suggest introducing one of the non-native plant’s non-native predators to control it. New research by John D. Parker…

Nearly 10 years ago, an analysis by the Vermont Forest Bird Monitoring Program (FBMP) revealed that Canada warblers were declining significantly on study sites across the state. The warbler…

It may sound politically incorrect, but let’s face it: males and females are different. Some human animals strive to bridge those differences, but in most of the animal kingdom, differences…

In our Autumn 2004 Discoveries, we reported on research suggesting that friction and gravity constrain evapotranspiration in trees and thus limit tree height – to 426.51 feet in the…

In last summer’s Discoveries, we reported that overly abundant white-tailed deer are inflicting great damage on forest understory plants, like ginseng. What are the implications of a forest…