Environmental data loggers

Congratulations! If you have reached this page, that means you found one of our environmental sensors out in the woods that help us in our research. We use these instruments to measure things like temperature, soil water availability, and light in an effort to understand how plant growth is affected by their surroundings.

PLEASE LEAVE THESE INSTRUMENTS WHERE THEY ARE AND, IF YOU REMOVED THEM, PLEASE PUT THEM BACK WHERE YOU FOUND THEM AS SOON AS YOU CAN.

Below, we outline the type of data that each sensor records in case you are interested in learning more about what you found. To learn more about the research that we do in our lab, please feel free to explore the rest of this website. And if you have any remaining questions, please feel free to reach out over email to Professor Ben Lee at LeeBR1@etsu.edu.

TOMST TMS logger

The TMS loggers look like little plastic mushrooms growing out of the forest floor. They measure temperature both above and below the soil surface. The flat green part that goes below the soil surface measures soil moisture and helps us understand how much rainfall has occurred. The white "mushroom head" is not an instrument, but just a shield to protect the instrument from sun damage.