The Ohio Oak Openings site is located within the Oak Openings Preserve Metropark of northwest Ohio, one of the few remaining oak woodlands/savanna/prairie complexes in the Midwest. Declared one of the "One of America's Last Great Places" by the Nature Conservancy the area consists of four main vegetation types: Oak Woodlands, Oak Savanna, Floodplain Forests and Wet Prairies. The stand surrounding the tower is mainly Oak Woodlands dominated by red, white and black oaks with a relatively abundant population of red maples indicating high soil moisture retention and a history of limited fire disturbances. Most of the area was cleared for agriculture at the time of Euro-American settlements in the mid to late-19th century. A large fraction of the cleared land was later abandoned due to the poor sandy soils. These areas reverted to Oak Savannas and in cases where fire was limited progressively made the transition to Oak Woodlands. Today patches of the forest are burned every few years as part of prescribed burning cycle to control stand density.

The research and science objectives of the Ohio Oak Openings site are as follows: 1) Quantify and partition the effect of a moderate drought on the carbon balance of a temperate forest; 2) Determine the magnitudes and dynamics of Estimate Litter Respiration, Mineral Soil Respiration, and Soil Respiration (total) through manipulations of litter horizon in an oak-dominated forest; 3) Determine the relative importance of temperature and moisture mediating Mineral Soil Respiration and Estimate Litter Respiration; 4) Investigate how this mediation changes seasonally as determined by plant phenophases; 5) Account for the seasonal environmental changes in the regulation in Soil Respiration. (DeForest et al., 2009, Noormets et al., 2008, DeForest et al., 2006)