Luquillo Experimental Forest

The Sabana Field Research Station

The El Verde Field Station

The El Verde Field Station, which has living quarters and laboratory facilities for up to 25 scientists, is maintained by the Institute for Tropical Ecosystem Studies in the Luquillo. The field station provides collections of local plants and animals; a laboratory with light meters, balances, microscopes, pH meters, hoods, etc.; line power backed up by a generator; and gas, air, and vacuum lines. The Biology Department of the University of Puerto Rico (Río Piedras) maintains a second field station in the palo colorado forest of the Luquillo Experimental Forest.

Among the resources available through the Institute are the Bisley Experimental Watersheds, the Sabana Field Research Station, a woodshop, analytical laboratory for soils and vegetation, tropical forestry library with 55,000 documents, 10,000 bound volumes, 100 journal subscriptions, map, film, and slide collections of the entire Oxford forestry collection on microfilm, FAO documents and journal listings from larger libraries (e.g., Oxford, University of Georgia, University of Florida, USDA National Agricultural Library) in microfiche, computerized literature searching facilities, and a research herbarium with more than 95 percent of the 700+ tree species in Puerto Rico. The herbarium is operated by the Botanical Garden of the University of Puerto Rico.

The Bisley Experimental Watersheds (BEW) are three adjacent watersheds managed by the Institute, located in tabonuco forest a few kilometers south of the Sabana Field Research Station.

Within the BEW, a number of long-term ecological, hydrological, and silvicultural research projects have been conducted since the 1980s, carried out by Institute scientists and collaborating researchers from the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Program (LUQ-LTER), the Luquillo Critical Zone Observatory (LCZO), and the U.S. Geological Survey, among others.

Long-term, detailed monitoring of biogeochemistry, climate variables, and stream runoff in Bisley has produced some of the longest environmental records on watershed processes in the Neotropics, and has made significant contributions to the understanding of hydrologic, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycling in tropical wet forests.

The data from Bisley provide an unequalled opportunity to understand seasonal and inter-annual climatic variability and quantify its relationships with ecosystem processes, including the effects of multiple hurricanes, droughts, plant aboveground stoichiometry, and forest diversity and structure on biogeochemistry and faunal assemblages at the plot and watershed scales. They also contribute to collaborative analysis and research with ecologists from Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratories and other experimental forests and watersheds to support synthesis and large-scale understanding of climate change parameters and stream discharge relationships.

Bisley Facilities

Research facilities include two walk-up canopy towers, climate stations, three stream gages, throughfall and litter collectors, permanent ecological study plots, and areas designated for aquatic research. Forest composition and soil and plant nutrient content are monitored in 83 permanent 10 meter diameter plots on a 40 x 40 meter grid every 5 years.

Canopy throughfall and litterfall are measured weekly. Stream chemistry and coarse particulate export are measured every two weeks in three streams. Shrimp abundances are measured twice yearly in two BEW streams, and algal abundance, ecosystem metabolism, chlorophyll a, and insect abundance are measured biannually in one BEW stream.