Highlands Biological Station · Field Dispatches
Notes from the Field
Researcher spotlights, current projects, and discoveries from one of the most biologically rich corners of the Southern Appalachians.
Highlands, North Carolina 35.0526° N, 83.1968° W Elev. 4,118 ft Southern Blue Ridge
About the series
Science, fieldwork, and the people behind it
Every summer, scientists arrive at Highlands Biological Station to study the salamanders, plants, forests, and waters of the southern Blue Ridge — a global biodiversity hotspot. Notes from the Field follows that work as it happens.
Each dispatch pairs original research with the photography, fieldwork, and first-person reflection that bring it to life — from a single salamander on a rainy trail to a tree ring five centuries old.
- Researcher spotlightsConversations with the visiting scientists who make HBS their field laboratory.
- Current researchProjects underway right now across the Highlands Plateau.
- HBS staff researchDiscoveries led by the Station's own scientists, archivists, and educators.
Latest dispatch
HBS Staff ResearchA Long-Dead Hemlock Still Has Stories to Tell
A cross-section that entered the Nature Center collection in 1928 may push the Plateau's tree-ring record past five hundred years. Staff researcher Liam Stiefel is scanning the rings in high resolution to read drought, growth, and forest change written in the wood — and to match them against living old-growth hemlocks on campus.
Catalog HBS 1928·Tsuga canadensis — began growing c. 1500 CEScanning the specimen meant holding an upside-down scanner steady against its slanted face, capturing overlapping images to stitch together later. If the rings can be matched to other records, the result would be a 520-plus-year reference available to researchers at HBS and beyond. As the team puts it, collections are never static
— even an object preserved for a century can still hold new data.
in this edition
tree-ring record
two-lined salamanders
the museum collection
The field notes
Explore the dispatches
Filter by subject, or read straight through. Every story links to the full piece.
Showing all 8 dispatches.
NFF·001 Salamanders Aug 2025
Researcher SpotlightIn Focus: Salamanders, Science, and the Art of Seeing Nature
Biologist and photographer Todd Pierson on the alternative mating tactics of two-lined salamanders, mentoring students in the field, and capturing amphibian life through his lens.
NFF·002 Salamanders Jul 2025
Current ResearchDeep Roots, Cold Streams
A decades-long collaboration decoding the chemical courtship of plethodontid salamanders — and the mentorship legacy that keeps drawing scientists back to HBS.
NFF·003 Botany Sep 2025
Researcher SpotlightDr. Joey Shaw: Plants, Plateaus, and a Passion for Teaching
A botanist and teacher on ferns, sedges, and wetland flora across the Highlands Plateau — and his mission to bridge technical botany with public curiosity.
NFF·004 Water & Air Dec 2025
HBS Staff ResearchThe Air We Breathe, the Water We Share
Associate Director Jason Love traces microplastics through Western North Carolina — from rivers and forest soils to the rain itself — and asks what “pristine” really means.
NFF·005 Forests & Climate May 2026
HBS Staff ResearchA Long-Dead Hemlock Still Has Stories to Tell
A 1928 museum specimen may extend the Plateau's tree-ring record past five centuries, revealing drought, growth, and forest change recorded ring by ring.
NFF·006 Botany Apr 2026
Current ResearchA Plant Hidden by Water
Kral's water plantain is known from just six populations on Earth. Grant-in-Aid researcher Jake Thompson recreates the Little River's currents in living stream tanks to learn how the threatened aquatic plant grows, flowers, and might be saved.
NFF·007 Field Notes Nov 2025
Field NotesField Notes from 2025: Monitoring Bats in a Changing Appalachia
Research Assistant Adriana Kirk reflects on a season checking abandoned mines and caves for hibernating bats — from white-nose syndrome to a record count of 27 tricolored bats deep underground.
NFF·008 Field Notes Nov 2025
Field NotesField Notes from 2025: A Naturalist’s Postgrad Journey
After graduating, Research Assistant Hannah Shepard traded screens for trails — 100+ miles on the Appalachian Trail, spruce–fir summits, bat surveys, and her first green salamanders.
Teaching, learning, and conserving plant species and habitats is what drives me.
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Field science continues here
The work in these dispatches depends on the people, programs, and support behind Highlands Biological Station. Here's how to go deeper.