Wabikon, WI, USA

The Wabikon Forest Dynamics Plot is located within the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in northeastern Wisconsin, approximately 6 km east of Crandon. Research at the site began in 2007 led by principal investigators Amy Wolf, Robert Howe, and Gary Fewless of the Cofrin Center for Biodiversity at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service and the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Tropical Forest Science. The 25.2 ha rectangular plot (840 m x 300 m) was mapped by a professional engineering team during October 2007. Iron posts were driven into the ground to permanently mark the corners of the 630 20 m x 20 m grid cells. Field work began during summer 2008, and the first census of trees and shrubs > 1 cm diameter was completed in September 2009.

The glacially formed topography consists of hummocky outwash features with a prominent esker running through part of the site. Mesic northern hardwoods occupy most of the plot, dominated by sugar maple (Acer saccharum), basswood (Tilia americana), white ash (Fraxinus americana), and ironwood/eastern hop hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana). Animal species include black bear (Ursus americana), gray wolf (Canis lupus), and a rich assemblage of neotropical migrant birds. The Wabikon Forest Dynamics Plot was logged during the early 1900s and again (selectively) in 1985, but the understory is very high quality, and the forest is similar to more than a million hectares of commercially important hardwood forests in the western Great Lakes region. An area of 447 ha, including the plot and nearby lowlands, was designated as a Wisconsin State Natural Area in 2007. Long term plans include studies of seedling demography, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) browsing, and ecology of understory herbs.