Hubbard Brook Research Foundation

06/08/2026

“Science Night” at Hubbard Brook has been a cherished summer tradition for decades, bringing generations of summer students together with more senior scientists to share research, ask questions, and pass along Hubbard Brook traditions and stories after long days in the field.

Geoff Wilson, Hubbard Brook’s Manager of Field and Lab Operations, kicked off the 2026 season with our first Science Night of the summer—held on the same porch where Hubbard Brook’s founders chatted about the small watershed approach ~60 years prior.

The first photo and video were taken in the past week. The final two images are from the 1970s, captured in the very same place.

06/05/2026

Throughout the spring and summer, Hubbard Brook researchers use time-lapse cameras to capture hourly photographs of insects visiting UV-lit moth sheets. After the field season, image-processing tools help sort through thousands of photos and identify many individuals down to species.

Although Hubbard Brook's first Community Moth Night of the season was chilly and rainy, we still found a variety of moths and enjoyed a presentation by Dartmouth biology professor Matt Ayres on current moth research at Hubbard Brook.

📸 Event photos by Haley Harrison-Leonardi
📸 Moth photos by Suhavi
📸 Macro photography by Jessica Jones
🎨 "Moths of Hubbard Brook" sheet illustrated by Raisa Kochmaruk

Challenge: How many moth families and/or species can you identify on the "Moths of Hubbard Brook" illustration?

05/22/2026

These images of insects swarming the flowers of a rare balsam willow were captured by longtime Hubbard Brook lead scientist Scott Bailey, near Hubbard Brook’s Rain Gage 1 monitoring station.

Willows are among the first trees to offer nectar in spring, making them an important early food source for insects. Balsam willow is typically a northern species, making this tree an unusual find in central New Hampshire.

View Scott's full observation on iNaturalist here, including the other insect species present on the balsam willow:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/363938242

View Hubbard Brook's page on iNaturalist here, where you can contribute your own observations of plants, animals, and insects and have them reviewed by the naturalist community:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=156083

05/15/2026

🍃Invisible Impacts: Society & Long-Term Ecosystem Change🍃

Invisible Impacts is a virtual symposium aiming to bridge social analysis and long-term ecological data to spark new interdisciplinary research on the social drivers of environmental change.

What new questions emerge when we analyze long-term ecological datasets through social lenses?

📅 June 8-9, 2026
⏱️ 9:30 am PT / 12:30 pm ET - 2:30 pm PT / 5:30 pm ET
💻 Virtual - On Zoom

🔗 Register here:
https://lnkd.in/e7c4GkVx
🌐 For more information, visit our website:
https://lnkd.in/eddtrJYS

05/11/2026

Today, in a demonstration of bipartisan support for Hubbard Brook science, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen and NH Governor Kelly Ayotte issued a joint announcement, confirming that Hubbard Brook will remain open.

"We will not stop working to stabilize the science, but today we celebrate the victory! It would not be possible without you - your letters, calls, and direct conversations with leaders at local, state, and national levels sent a powerful and unified signal of support. We are beyond grateful to Senator Shaheen, Senator Hassan, and Governor Ayotte for stabilizing Hubbard Brook and holding the line for science."

--Hubbard Brook Research Foundation Executive Director, Anthea Lavallee

"Research from Hubbard Brook and Bartlett has guided forest stewardship across New England for the better part of a century, and we simply can't afford to lose that."

--U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen to WMUR earlier today

Read the full article here:

The Trump administration will not close a 70-year-old forest research station located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, WMUR's Adam Sexton was first to report Monday morning.

05/08/2026

Hubbard Brook's Forest Data Jam wrapped up its inaugural session with our virtual forest Gala this week!

Thank you so much to our participants, judges, and facilitators for an incredible first year of the Jam! A special thanks to Lindsey Rustad for bringing her Forest Data Jam idea to fruition.

We concluded the session with twelve exquisite submissions that each interpreted Hubbard Brook’s climate and hydrology long-term datasets into original, highly creative works--from a physical tempestry to data-driven classical symphonies, from an online game to AI chatbots and ecological simulations.

First place went to “Bansuri Flutes” by Megha Srivastava, a PhD student in Computer Science at Stanford University;

Second place went to "Ghost in the Groundwater” by Bobby Pace, a senior at Exeter High School with a passion for environmental science and music;

Third Place went to "Sonic Flows", created by a team of data sonification and visual artists from the US and Sweden, including Ben Dexter Cooley, Duncan Geere, Max Graze, Micah Lewis, and Simon Rydén.

View all of the projects on the Forest Data Jam website here:
https://data-jam.replit.app/showcase

05/05/2026

Thank you to the American Philosophical Society for capturing this great story from Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study Co-founder, Gene Likens, as he reflects on the discovery of acid rain.

05/01/2026

Just-out New York Times article mentions Hubbard Brook and includes statements from the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation's Executive Director, Anthea Lavallee:

A research lab in Washington State tracks ecological changes in a warming climate and provides scientific guidance for forest managers. It is one of 57 such facilities being shuttered.

04/28/2026

04/23/2026

Come see "The Little Things" -- a gallery of scientific images curated by Fall '25 Young Voices of Science alum Alyssa Tsukada. The exhibit will be on display at the Studio Blue art gallery, housed at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography Island Coastal Institute Building. Grand opening on May 13th at 4pm!

Alyssa is a PhD student at the University of Rhode Island studying Biological Oceanography. For her outreach project for the YVoS program, Alyssa created a coffee table style book titled “The Little Things: Exploring Nature’s Mirrored Microscopic Morphologies".

This amazing series of side by side images pairs microscopic subjects with their macroscopic mirrors, a way of curating a view of the natural world from the scale of nanometers to light-years.

Can't make it to the gallery? View Alyssa's project on the Young Voices of Science website:

https://youngvoicesofscience.org/?p=2107