Study area My study areas will be at the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS) located in Pellston Michigan (Northern Lower Peninsula) and the John Arthur-Woollam (JAW) Preserve in Cedarville, Michigan (East Upper Peninsula). Both locations have standing and maintained deer exclosures. Research will be conducted in conjunction with a research project by Larissa Kohn-Magee. Quantifying Deer Browse Deer browse will be quantified inside and outside of the exclosure using the twig age method (Waller, Johnson, Witt, 2017). This method assesses year(s) since last browse event, using bud scale scars. Species included in this assessment will be red maple (Acer rubrum) across both sampling locations, Additionally, we will utilize two other woody species to determine if those species can also be used to quantify deer herbivory. General data will be collected on GPS coordinates, location, date and site description. Starting time, species sampled, height (cm) and fresh browse will also be recorded. Study Design One to two 200m transects (depending on exclosure size) will be established facing cardinal directions on each exterior side of the enclosure. From this point the transects will be extended into the exclosure at a distance dependent on the size of the exclosure(Figure 1). The UMBS exclosures are 0.4 ha and the JAW preserve exclosures are 1 ha in area. Starting at 10m away from each side of the exclosure, 100m2 circular plots will be established every 20 meters. I will be collecting data on anthropogenic obstacles/disturbances and environmental variables including: trails and paths, light availability/canopy cover, leaf litter depth, ground cover, and plot stem density. At the JAW preserve soil moisture will also be recorded due to large variations in topography. Chemical Analysis To be able to compare secondary metabolite production at different deer browse levels I will be collecting bud(spring) and leaf (summer) samples for saplings of Acer rubrum, Quercus rubra, Fagus grandifolia at UMBS, and saplings of Acer rubrum, Thuja occidentalis and Tsuga canadensis at JAW. All Saplings will be between 20 and 160cm in height, the height that deer browse. Samples collected will immediately be placed into sample tubes labeled with species, date of collection, exclosure name and plot number. I will be recording sample data on printed data sheets in the field that will be regularly uploaded to the shared U of M research drive shared between Larissa-Kohn-Magee, Dr. Jill Witt, and myself. Species tubes will then be placed into labeled containers containing dry ice to preserve compounds in the field. I will be requesting short term storage space in a -40 freezer until I am able to transport samples back to U of M-Flint. All chemical analysis will take place at U of M-Flint. Chemical analysis for phenolics will be done using LC-UV-DAD chromatography for analysis of abundant phenolics (Ohse et. al 2017). I will use ANOVA and t-test to compare differences in secondary defense compounds inside vs. outside the exclosures.