Howland Forest

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View of the Howland Forest canopy from one of the site's research towers.

The Howland Research Forest is a 555 acre (2.2 km²) tract of mature evergreen forest in central Maine, west of the town of Howland. The Howland study site is located in a boreal transitional forest. This forest is dominated by mixed spruce, hemlock, aspen and birch stands ranging in age from 45 to 130 years. The soils are formed on coarse-loamy granitic basal till^[1]. The tract is part of the 1.1 million acres (4,500 km²) of Maine forest sold in 2005 by International Paper to a private forest investment management company^[2].

The tract had previously been designated as a research forest under IP's ownership, attracting researchers from the US Forest Service, the University of Maine, NASA, NOAA, and the Woods Hole Research Center. Areas of study included acid rain, nutrient cycling, soil ecology, and more recently, forest carbon uptake and loss. The forest has one of the longest records of carbon flux measurement in the world, dating to 1996, providing important information about carbon sequestration in mature forests. The Howland Forest is a founding member of the AmeriFlux and FLUXNET research networks^[3].