10 years of Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change Research at the Second College Grant – Field Tour and Webinar Series

Webinars are free but registration required.

Field Tour registration is $50 and includes lunch.

Join us for a comprehensive reflection of ten years of Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change research at the Second College Grant in New Hampshire. This series will include 7 lunch-hour webinars throughout the summer and will conclude with a field tour of the research sites at the Second College Grant, New Hampshire in September. Throughout the series, researchers and managers from this work will share their results and insights from this ongoing, long-term research and broader relevance to the stewardship of northern hardwood and mixed wood forests.

The Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change Network is the largest experimental silviculture program focused on climate adaptation in North America and provides crucial information on how to manage forests for changing conditions. The ASCC Network is: 

• Developing and implementing an experimental framework testing a suite of climate-adaptive management actions co-designed with local managers to provide practical, real-world relevance.
• Evaluating and comparing intentionally designed silvicultural treatments of resistance, resilience, and transition to identify forest adaptation interventions and their impacts on a wide range of taxa and ecosystem processes.
• Fostering diverse, collaborative science-management partnerships, which leads to more direct actionable science delivery and implementation of adaptation actions.
• Providing valuable insights to the broader community of researchers, managers, and others actively responding to climate change.

Beginning in 2016, the Second College Grant ASCC site was co-developed with a diverse group of managers, researchers, and institutions. As one of the original five ASCC study sites, “The Grant,” more broadly, serves as a demonstration forest for the region. The property consists of 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 1807. The forest is predominantly rich, mesic northern hardwoods dominated by sugar maple, American beech and yellow birch, with minor components of red maple, red spruce, and other species. “The Grant” has long been utilized for timber but is also recognized as a model forest used for wilderness, recreation and forest and natural resource research, including the ASCC study.

Forester Credits: Whole event (7 webinars, field tour) - 13.0 SAF Category 1 CFEs; September 1 Field Tour - 6.0 SAF Category 1 CFEs; Each webinar - 1.0 SAF Category 1 CFEs

Co-sponsored by: the Northeast Silviculture Institute for Foresters, Dartmouth College, and the University of Vermont

Webinar Series

Wednesdays, 12:00 - 1:00 PM

Webinar 1: June 10, 2026 - Forest Management History of the Second College Grant
Presented by: Kevin Evans, Forester and Director of Woodlands Operations, Dartmouth College.

Dartmouth College has owned the 27,000 acre Second College Grant since 1807. The first timber sale was in 1828, and the first forester was hired in 1905. This webinar will provide a detailed history of management including timber types and stand conditions, shifting priorities and markets, responses to pest outbreaks and climate change, and general improvement of the forest through intentional silvicultural practices.

Webinar 2: June 17, 2026 - Ten Years of Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change at the Second College Grant
Presented by: Dr. Anthony D’Amato, Professor of Silviculture and Applied Forest Ecology and Forestry Program Director - Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont

An installation of the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) experimental network was co-produced by regional managers and scientists at Dartmouth’s Second College Grant in 2016. This webinar will discuss the silvicultural strategies being tested at this ASCC site and their early outcomes in terms of forest structure, composition, and potential adaptive pathways for addressing forest health and climate change impacts.

Webinar 3: July 8, 2026 - How Mammals Respond to Climate Adaptation Actions: An Example from the Northern Forest
Presented by: Dr. Toni Lyn Morelli, Adjunct (Full) Professor Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, US Geological Survey

This presentation will summarize the latest research on how northeastern forest mammals are responding to climate change and how adaptation actions, including adaptive silviculture, can affect wildlife communities.

Webinar 4: July 22, 2026 - Tree Planting for Adaptation in Northern Forests During an Era of Global Change
Presented by: Dr. Peter Clark, Research Associate Faculty - Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont

This webinar will highlight how ASCC used tree planting as an adaptation strategy to enhance resilience and transition stands toward future-adapted forest composition and structure. The talk will describe how planting choices were integrated with silvicultural treatments to address regeneration challenges, increase species and functional diversity, and translate climate adaptation concepts into operational forest management.

Webinar 5: August 5, 2026 - Linking Fungi, Fauna, and Forest Recovery: The Role of Small Mammals in Mycorrhizal Fungal Spore Dispersal & Regeneration Processes
Presented by: Dr. Ryan Stephens, Assistant Professor, East Tennessee State University & Dr. Rebecca Rowe, Professor Natural Resources and the Environment, University of New Hampshire

Forest recovery isn't just about trees. It also depends on animals moving seeds and mycorrhizal fungi through the landscape. This webinar highlights how small mammals disperse mycorrhizal spores into recently harvested areas, how fungal communities differ between intact forests and patch cuts, and how feeding behaviors like seed predation and fungivory shape the trajectory of regeneration.

Webinar 6: August 12, 2026 - Colder Logs in a Warmer World: Tracking the Post-Harvest Microclimate and Respiration of Coarse Woody Material
Presented by: Dr. Christopher Woodall, CTrees Director of US Forest Science and Policy and Dr. Shawn Fraver, Associate Professor, Forest Ecology University of Maine

Downed dead wood is a substantial component of the forest carbon pool which often increases during harvest activities, yet its behavior across the New England seasons is often treated as a dormant "black box." In this webinar, we combine continuous micro-sensor data with in situ gas flux measurements at the Second College Grant to reveal the surprisingly active life of coarse woody material. We will explore how snowpack depth creates a protective refuge that may sustain microbial respiration, what happens during snowpack melts, and what these hidden climate dynamics mean for the future of forest carbon accounting in New England.

Webinar 7: August 26, 2026 - Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change Enriches Bird Communities
Presented by: Dr. David King, Research Wildlife Biologist (retired) USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station, Amherst MA

We surveyed breeding birds across the three ASCC treatments (resistance, resilience, and transition) and control (no action) plots in 2023 and 2024. Only one of 22 mature forest species was most abundant in control plots and all 4 shrubland bird species were most abundant in treated stands. It appears the ASCC treatments maintain or even benefit all forest bird species, while at the same time create habitat for shrubland species.

Second College Grant Field Tour

September 1, 2026

9:00 - 9:30 AM – Introductions and Description of the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change work at the Second College Grant.

9:30AM - 12:30 PM – Field Tour of ASCC research sites

• Forest structural and compositional outcomes, dead and downed wood monitoring, enrichment planting of future-adapted species, bird and small mammal considerations, forest management outcomes, etc.

12:30 - 1:30 PM – Lunch at Sam’s Lookout

1:30 - 4:00 PM – Tour of Forest Management at the Second College Grant.

• Spruce Budworm silviculture, stream crossings, other work completed by Dartmouth Woodlands