UNDERC

The UNDERC (University of Notre Dame Environmental Research Center) Forest Dynamics Plot is located at the University of Notre Dame Environmental Research Center near the town of Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin. This 8000 acre site has been owned and operated by the University of Notre Dame since the 1930’s and is surrounded on three sides by the Ottawa National Forest. The plot rests just to the west of Tenderfoot Creek, has sandy soils with a high water table and experiences spring flooding due to snow melt. The plot is dominated by red maple (A. rubrum), sugar maple (Acer saccharum), beaked hazelnut (Corylus cornuta), balsam fir (Abies balsamea), quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) and a patch of alder (Alnus incana) in a low-lying portion of the plot near the creek. The species composition is of the plot is similar to the nearby Wabikon Lake Forest Dynamics Plot, but there are conspicuous differences in relative abundances presumably due to differences in the water table and there is a much higher density of stems at UNDERC due to the prevalence of Alnus and Corylus in the understory. Like the Wabikon Lake plot, the UNDERC site still has significant Fraxinus americana and F. nigra populations. The faunal assemblage at the site is largely in tact with occasional sightings of grey wolves (Canis lupus), coyotes (Canis latrans), bobcats (Lynx rufus), black bears (Ursus americana), moose (Alces alces) and mountain lions (Puma concolor).

The last known logging activity at the site in the area containing the forest dynamics plot was in the early 1900’s. The UNDERC site is the core terrestrial and aquatic site in the Great Lakes region for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) joining several other ForestGeo plots co-located at NEON sites. The plot is ~200m northeast of the NEON eddy covariance flux tower and benefits from NEON data products collected from the sensor arrays located on and around the tower and from hyperspectral, LiDAR and RGB imagery taken by the NEON Airborne Observatory Platform. The research team has installed a seedling plot grid in the plot, collected data on the core set of leaf, wood and seed traits for all woody plants at the site, sequenced and assembled the transcriptomes for the species in the plot, sequenced and assembled the genomes of the 5 most dominant diploid Angiosperm species and begun characterizing the intra- and inter-specific metabolomic diversity of species in the plot. The UNDERC site has modern apartments, university-level laboratories and a classroom. Thus, the site has significant physical and data infrastructure that can facilitate future collaborations with other ForestGeo researchers.