Trelease Woods is an exceptionally rare example of undisturbed, old growth eastern deciduous forest in Illinois. A university property since 1917, it has a long history of ecological research, making it one of the most studied forests in North America. Highlights include transformative work on food webs, forest succession, and climate change effects on phenology (leaf flush and flowering of trees and forest herbs). Unique datasets exist on the vegetative composition of Trelease dating to back to the 1920s, however until 2018 there was no complete tree inventory of the forest. With SSC support, this team trained 70 students that over 3 years mapped, measured and identified every tree (31,980 individual trees) using the standardized protocol of ForestGeo – a global network of forest dynamics plots coordinated by the Smithsonian Institution. Trelease Woods is now the 73rd plot to join this network. Completion of this census has allowed this team to provide hands-on training opportunities in forest ecology to an unprecedented number of undergrads from four different UIUC colleges. It also leveraged funding from the Provost’s Initiative on Teaching Advancement and Integrative Biology to support an RA to generate class projects for >300 undergrads a year to use data from the census in IB203,372, and NRES219.

Inclusion of Trelease Woods in the ForestGeo network requires this team to recensus Trelease Woods every five years. This allows researchers from around the world to synthesize data on how forest ecosystems are changing. A critical component of this work is to determine what role forests play as either carbon sources or sinks in the global carbon budget. Recensusing Trelease will also contribute to local-scale carbon monitoring efforts, helping campus determine carbon storage trends for this property. Accordingly, in Fall 2023 this team will recensus Trelease using the same protocol as 2018. This team will remeasure all trees to record tree growth and mortality and add new trees that have grown large enough to be included in the census. This is a key step in establishing the Trelease Woods plot. This recensus will provide

• Training for an additional 50+ undergraduate census workers during Fall semester 2023, Spring 2024 and Summer 2024 
• The first measurement of forest growth and mortality for Trelease 
• New undergrad research opportunities to track changing carbon storage patterns in forests 
• Opportunities to educate students on the critical importance of forest conservation in reducing carbon emissions and mitigating the effects of emissions of atmospheric CO2 levels.