Current and Past Research

Research Projects

Phosphorus Transport Study

Dr. Chris Zahasky
Professor of Geoscience, UW-Madison

Vy Le
PhD Student UW-Madison Dept of Geoscience

Dr. Erin Berns-Herrboldt
Professor of Water Science, UW-Green Bay

David Hart
Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey

Surveillance for Ticks and Vector Borne Diseases

Dr. Xia Lee
Vector Biologist, Midwest Center for Excellence: Vector Borne Disease

Soil Aggregate Study

Gwendolyn Pipes
PhD Candidate, Department of Soil Sciences, UW-Madison

White-tailed Deer Browse and Forest Soil Health

A PhD student wearing outdoor gear and a bug net sits on a log in front of a caged oak

Aundrea Blake Taylor
Masters Student, UW-Madison Dept of Forestry

Past Research

A wealth of knowledge has been generated by researchers that come to Upham Woods, both in natural sciences and human sciences. Over the last several decades, researchers have published almost 50 scientific journal articles that have cumulatively been cited over 6,600 times. Much of the past research done at Upham Woods used remote sensing technology to answer questions about forest ecosystems, ranging from the chemical makeup of roots and leaves to nutrient cycling in the forest canopy.

Deer Exclosures

Two deer exclosures were constructed on Blackhawk Island in 1988. The exclosures are located on the east side of Overland Trail near the intersection of Overland and White Tail Trails and off of Narrows Trail approximately half-way between Devil’s Elbow and Upham Cave. These exclosures were randomly sampled for several years to catalog and compare the exclosure and the surrounding area.

There is a distinct and obvious difference between inside the exclosures and outside. According to Upham Woods archives, during the late 80’s and early 90’s deer browse was at its worst. There was virtually no regeneration other than maple saplings to succeed the yellow birch, oak, pine, and hemlock outside of the exclosures, which the island has been so well known for. Inside both exclosures during this time period, there was a near complete ground cover of grass, forbs, and woody seedlings compared to the scattered forbs and virtually no woody seedlings on the outside. Today, the exclosures still show a marked difference between browsed and not-browsed vegetation; however, not as extreme as the 1980’s and 1990’s. Deer management practices have helped limit deer browse. In the exclosures today, you can expect to find putty root (Aplectrum hyemale), bellwort (Actaea spicata), bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), ramp (Allium tricoccum), maidenhair fern (Adiantum), Jack-in-the Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), and much more.

Buck walking through the snow

A buck was spotted on a trailcam by our Blackhawk Island campsite.

Upham used trail cameras in 2019 to begin conducting an observational study to track relative deer abundance. The purpose was to allow land managers to assess the change in herd populations and approximate the sex ratio. Observational data was recorded via trail cameras bewtween 10/14-12/2/2019. This study was interrupted by the Covid pandemic shutdown.

Fire History

According to Upham Woods Archives, a crew of DNR employees, led by Jed Meunier, sampled three locations – two spots in the Dells of the Wisconsin River State Natural Area (WD67, WD1), one in Rocky Arbor State Park (RA) as well as a couple samples, one which was dated, from Mirror Lake State Park (ML). The graph shown below is a representation of the samples where each horizontal line is a sample, usually a cross section, from a stump via a tree cut around European-settlement, but occasionally later (subsequent harvests). The dates at the bottom represent fires on > 2 samples.

Graph showing horizontal lines representing cross sections of tree stumps cut from 1634 – 2018 where fire evidence is present.

Blackhawk Island has had fire suppressed similar to the rest of the region since at least 1941 when the University of Wisconsin acquired the land. There was a fire that swept over Blackhawk Island in April of 1980 that, according the Lyndon Station Fire Department, was started by sparks from a Milwaukee Road freight train. The fire itself burned approximately 1,500-2,000 acres of wooded land. Several maple trees on Blackhawk Island show burn scars from this fire. According to neighbors’ accounts, the last fire before this was in 1912. No other records remain from the 1912 fire.

There were obviously frequent fires. 225 unique fire years from 1634 – 2018, and a Mean Fire Return Interval of 4.74 years for fires on > 2 samples. Many of these fire years were synchronous across large regions of Wisconsin (and also Michigan). The DNR has data for over 60 stands throughout Wisconsin including several sites in the Central Sands Ecological Landscape (Quincy Bluff, Fort McCoy, Levis Mound, Bruce Mound, Wildcat Ridge, Stony Bluff) and Baraboo Hills.

Poster with photos, artwork, a map, graphics and text explaining the relationship between Wisconsin's forests and fire and frequency of woodland burning at Upham Woods and the surrounding area.

Publications

Title	Author	Year	Publication
Aspects of the biology of Trientalis borealis Raf.	Anderson, R. C., & Loucks, O. L.	1973	Ecology, 54(4), 798-808
Geology, soils and vegetation of Blackhawk Island, Wisconsin	Pastor, J., Aber, J. D., McClaugherty, C. A., & Melillo, J. M.	1982	American Midland Naturalist, 266-277.
Lignin and holocellulose relations during long-term decomposition of some forest litters. Long-term decomposition in a Scots pine forest. IV	Berg, B., Ekbohm, G., & McClaugherty, C.	1984	Canadian Journal of Botany, 62(12), 2540-2550
Aboveground production and N and P cycling along a nitrogen mineralization gradient on Blackhawk Island, Wisconsin	Pastor, J., Aber, J. D., McClaugherty, C. A., & Melillo, J. M.	1984	Ecology, 65(1), 256-268.
Fine root turnover in forest ecosystems in relation to quantity and form of nitrogen availability: a comparison of two methods	Aber, J. D., Melillo, J. M., Nadelhoffer, K. J., McClaugherty, C. A., & Pastor, J.	1985	Oecologia, 66(3), 317-321
Rate of aerobic nitrogen transformations in six acid climax forest soils and the effect of phosphorus and CaCO3	Sahrawat, K. L., Keeney, D. R., & Adams, S. S.	1985	Forest Science, 31(3), 680-684.
High Resolution Spectrometry of Leaf and Canopy Chemistry for Biochemical Cycling	Spanner, M. A., Peterson, D. L., Acevedo, W., & Matson, P.	1985
Nitrogen availability in some Wisconsin forests: comparisons of resin bags and on-site incubations	Binkley, D., Aber, J., Pastor, J., & Nadelhoffer, K.	1986	Biology and Fertility of Soils, 2(2), 77-82.
Nitrogen release from litter in relation to the disappearance of lignin	Berg, B., & McClaugherty, C. (	1987	Biogeochemistry, 4(3), 219-224.
Prediction of leaf chemistry by the use of visible and near infrared reflectance spectroscopy	Card, D. H., Peterson, D. L., Matson, P. A., & Aber, J. D.	1988	Remote Sensing of Environment, 26(2), 123-147.
Remote sensing of forest canopy and leaf biochemical contents	Peterson, D. L., Aber, J. D., Matson, P. A., Card, D. H., Swanberg, N., Wessman, C., & Spanner, M	1988	Remote Sensing of Environment, 24(1), 85-108.
Remote sensing of canopy chemistry and nitrogen cycling in temperate forest ecosystems	Wessman, C. A., Aber, J. D., Peterson, D. L., & Melillo, J. M.	1988	Nature, 335(6186), 154-156.
Nitrogen and phosphorus release from decomposing litter in relation to the disappearance of lignin.	Berg, B., & McClaugherty, C.	1989	Canadian Journal of Botany, 67(4), 1148-1156.
An evaluation of imaging spectrometry for estimating forest canopy chemistry	Wessman, C. A., Aber, J. D., & Peterson, D. L.	1989	International Journal of Remote Sensing, 10(8), 1293-1316.
Remote sensing of litter and soil organic matter decomposition in forest ecosystems.	Aber, J. D., Wessman, C. A., Peterson, D. L., Melillo, J. M., & Fownes, J. H.	1990	In Remote sensing of biosphere functioning (pp. 87-103). Springer, New York, NY
Determination of nitrogen, lignin, and cellulose content of decomposing leaf material by near infrared reflectance spectroscopy	McLellan, T. M., Aber, J. D., Martin, M. E., Melillo, J. M., & Nadelhoffer, K. J.	1991	Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 21(11), 1684-1688.
Remote sensing of soil processes	Wessman, C. A.	1991	Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 34(1-4), 479-493
Comparison of methods for calibrating AVIRIS data to ground reflectance. In 5th Annual Airborne Geoscience Workshop	Clark, R. N., Swayze, G., Heidebrecht, K., Goetz, A. F., & Green, R. O.	1993	AVIRIS. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif (pp. 35-36).
Measurements of canopy chemistry with 1992 AVIRIS data at Blackhawk Island and Harvard Forest.	Martin, M. E., & Aber, J. D.	1993
Measurements of foliar chemistry using laboratory and airborne high spectral resolution visible and infrared data.	Martin, M. E.	1994
Factors controlling ecosystem structure and function	Vitousek, P. M.	1994	Factors of Soil Formation: A Fiftieth Anniversary Retrospective, 33, 87-97
Maximum decomposition limits of forest litter types: a synthesis.	Berg, B., Johansson, M. B., Ekbohm, G., McClaugherty, C., Rutigliano, F., & Santo, A. V. D.	1996	Canadian Journal of Botany, 74(5), 659-672.
Full-scene subnanometer HYDICE wavelength calibration.	Goetz, A. F., & Heidebrecht, K. B.	1996	In Hyperspectral Remote Sensing and Applications (Vol. 2821, pp. 85-92). International Society for Optics and Photonics.
Modeling leaching as a decomposition process in humid montane forests	Currie, W. S., & Aber, J. D.	1997	Ecology, 78(6), 1844-1860.
Estimating forest canopy characteristics as inputs for models of forest carbon exchange by high spectral resolution remote sensing.	Martin, M. E., & Aber, J. D.	1997	In The Use of Remote Sensing in the Modeling of Forest Productivity (pp. 61-72). Springer, Dordrecht.
High spectral resolution remote sensing of forest canopy lignin, nitrogen, and ecosystem processes	Martin, M. E., & Aber, J. D.	1997	Ecological applications, 7(2), 431-443.
Foliage litter quality and annual net N mineralization: comparison across North American forest sites.	Scott, N. A., & Binkley, D.	1997	Oecologia, 111(2), 151-159.
Determining forest species composition using high spectral resolution remote sensing data	Martin, M. E., Newman, S. D., Aber, J. D., & Congalton, R. G.	1998	Remote Sensing of Environment, 65(3), 249-254.
Spectroscopic determination of leaf biochemistry using band-depth analysis of absorption features and stepwise multiple linear regression.	Kokaly, R. F., & Clark, R. N.	1999	Remote sensing of environment, 67(3), 267-287.
Nitrogen controls on fine root substrate quality in temperate forest ecosystems	Hendricks, J. J., Aber, J. D., Nadelhoffer, K. J., & Hallett, R. D.	2000	Ecosystems, 3(1), 57-69.
A method for predicting fresh green leaf nitrogen concentrations from shortwave infrared reflectance spectra acquired at the canopy level that requires no in situ nitrogen dat	Bortolot, Z. J., & Wynne, R. H.	2003	International Journal of Remote Sensing, 24(3), 619-624.
Influence of disturbance on temperate forest productivity	Peters, E. B., Wythers, K. R., Bradford, J. B., & Reich, P. B.	2013	Ecosystems, 16(1), 95-110
Upload download: Empowering students through technology-enabled problem-based learning	Eitel, K., Hougham, J. R., Miller, B., Schon, J., & LaPaglia, K.	2013	Science Scope, 36(7), 32.
Spectroscopic determination of leaf morphological and biochemical traits for northern temperate and boreal tree species	Serbin, S. P., Singh, A., McNeil, B. E., Kingdon, C. C., & Townsend, P. A.	2014	Ecological Applications, 24(7), 1651-1669.
The value of a tree: comparing carbon sequestration to forest products	Schon, J., Hougham, R. J., Eitel, K., & Hollenhorst, S.	2014	Science Scope, 37(7), 27.
Mitigation and adaptation: critical perspectives toward digital technologies in place-conscious environmental education	Greenwood, D. A., & Hougham, R. J.	2015	Policy futures in education, 13(1), 97-116.
Technology-enriched STEM investigations of place: Using technology to extend the senses and build connections to and between places in science education	Hougham, R. J., Eitel, K. C. B., & Miller, B. G.	2015	Journal of Geoscience Education, 63(2), 90-97.
Creating a research to classroom pipeline: closing the gap between science research and educators	Schon, J., Eitel, K. B., Hendrickson, D., & Hougham, J.	2015
Lessons learned from the design and development of technology-enhanced outdoor learning experiences	Veletsianos, G., Miller, B. G., Eitel, K. B., Eitel, J. U., Hougham, R. J., & Hansen, D.	2015	TechTrends: Linking Research and Practice to Improve Learning, 59(4), 78-86.
To unplug or plug in	Hougham, R. J., & Kerlin, S.	2016	Green Teacher, (111)
Engaging At-Risk Populations Outdoors	Hougham, R. J., Nutter, M., Nussbaum, A., Riedl, T., Myers, M., Berget, L., … & Oszuscik, S.	2016
Bridging natural and digital domains: Attitudes, confidence, and interest in using technology to learn outdoors	Hougham, R. J., Nutter, M., & Graham, C.	2018	Journal of Experiential Education, 41(2), 154-169
Status and Needs of Environmental Education Related Organizations in Wisconsin: Results from the 2019 state-wide survey	Hougham, J., Morgan, T., Olsen, S., & Herde, I.	2019	Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin – Madison Division of Extension.
Science to Story, Story to Social	Hougham, R. J., Herde, I., Loveland, J., Olsen, S., Morgan, T., Steinhauer, M., Goodrow, Z., Myers, M., & Oszuscik, S.	2020	Connected Science Learning, 2(2)
Research Accelerators: Milwaukee Environmental STEM (E-STEM) Project 2019.	Hougham, J., Olsen, S., Herde, I., Christian, A., Schuh, C., Goodrow, Z., & Drogemuller, T.	2020	Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin – Madison Division of Extension.
Implementing Ecopedagogy as an Experiential Approach to Decolonizing Science Education	Zocher, J. L., & Hougham, R. J.	2020	Journal of Experiential Education, 1053825920908615.
Digital Environmental Literacy: Student Generated Data and Inquiry	Hougham, R. J., Nutter, M., Gilbertson, M., & Bukouricz, Q.