I like to think of Dr. Neil Pederson as a detective. We met in his office at the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research site (HFR-LTER), on the second floor of one of their many beautiful buildings in what feels like a college campus. Multiple sections of tree trunks sit here and there, polished so…

Students gathered at a saltmarsh site in Massachusetts, taking a break from their regular school day routine to remove invasive perennial pepperweed plants from among the bushes and marsh grasses. Originally from West Asia and Europe, the leafy pepperweed can grow 2-5 feet tall, blooming with small, white, four-petaled flowers. Unfortunately, left alone the pepperweed…

Samuel Kelsey and I sped quickly through the marsh in one of the Plum Island Ecosystems LTER (PIE-LTER) site’s motor boats, zipping up our sweaters against the stiff ocean breezes despite the sunny skies of mid-June. The tide was low, and the brown marsh sides rose like miniature cliffs around us. Here and there, pieces…