Build a better understanding of a number of aspects of the terrestrial landscape around Ithaca

Understand how the major kinds of habitats that we see today have come to be, which habitats are of recent origin (e.g., old fields have been common only since European settlement in the late seventeenth century) and which habitats are much older (e.g., most of the different kinds of forests have been present for millennia), and of how different plant species have likely fit into a landscape that has changed dramatically in its configuration in the 200 years since European settlement

Description of the vegetation in central New York based on the original land survey records of 1790

Working out a detailed history of forest clearing, based on field work and old aerial photographs, for the county surrounding Ithaca

Disturbance regimes and regeneration dynamics of forests

Population dynamics of trees

Old field succession