Just how much do deer affect vegetation at Balch Hill? To find out, we are working with Dartmouth Professor Craig Layne and students in his Ecological Methods class on a long-term experiment at the Natural Area. In 2012, we erected a number of fenced “exclosures” to foil hungry deer. Here are the results – after just one year, the number of plants in the fenced areas (shown in blue) were almost twice the number in places (shown in red) where deer could get at them. Stay tuned for updates.
