Progress 10/01/05 to 09/30/10
Outputs
OUTPUTS: We have conducted outreach from this project through presentations at regional conferences (e.g Massachusetts Arborists' Association), publications in 2 trade journals, in numerous courses in the UMass urban forestry and horticulture programs, and at a national conferences in 2008 and 2009. This year, we presented findings at three international conferences including a conference on urban biodiversity and design in Nagoya, Japan (URBIO 2010), in numerous courses in the UMass urban forestry and horticulture programs. One manuscript is in review (Journal of Environmental Psychology) and another is in preparation. PARTICIPANTS: In addition to the two PIs, Paige Warren (Assistant Professor) and Brian Kane (Associate Professor), three graduate students participated in the project: Susannah Lerman (PhD student), Rachel Levine (PhD student), and Janice Zepko (professional master's student). TARGET AUDIENCES: We have conducted outreach to our target audiences of urban foresters, arborists, and town tree wardens through presentations at regional professional meetings and through trade journal publications. This year, we also reported findings at 3 international meetings, including a conference on biodiversity and urban design in Nagoya, Japan. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
Our work aims to simultaneously improve the efficiency of municipal and residential tree care, protect people and property from tree hazards, and improve habitat for wildlife in urban-suburban areas. Americans spent nearly 10 billion dollars on tree care in 2002 according to a survey funded by the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council, and hazard tree removal accounts for the major portion of municipal tree care budgets. Finding ways to protect habitat for birds and other species using cavity trees while mitigating critical hazards saves residents and taxpayers money that can then be allocated toward other critical needs such as tree planting. However, landowners must also weigh the possibility that a standing dead tree may fall, causing damage to property or causing human injury. Our studies show clear evidence that tree care practices have the potential to impact bird habitat. However, we also found opportunities for protecting some bird habitat while minimizing hazards to people and property. Nesting trees were significantly more likely to pose a hazard than nearby non-nesting trees of similar dimension. In particular, nesting trees had both larger defective parts and higher probability of failure (i.e. falling). However, not all highly hazard trees were used by birds and not all nesting trees were hazardous. Roughly one quarter of nesting trees had only moderate or low probability of failure. Factors other than actual risk - aesthetics, property value, social norms, and liability - come into play for landowners when making decisions about maintaining dead wood. Our survey research provides preliminary evidence that the perceived level of risk a tree poses to landowners affects their willingness to leave a dead tree for wildlife habitat. We also found that at lower levels of risk, the decision to leave a dead tree is determined by a combination of influences, including environmental beliefs, aesthetics, and financial issues. Finally, we found that urban residents have more negative attitudes toward dead or dying trees than do suburban residents.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 10/01/08 to 09/30/09
Outputs
OUTPUTS: We have continued doing outreach from this project through presentations at a regional conference (Massachusetts Arborists' Association), in numerous courses in the UMass urban forestry and horticulture programs, and at a two national conferences in 2009. One survey of private landowners was completed in 2009, and two manuscripts are in preparation. PARTICIPANTS: Two graduate students participated in the project during this reporting period: Rachel Levine (PhD student) and Janice Zepko (professional master's student). Three professional field technicians were supported to assist with nest searching and monitoring. Through leveraging other funds, I supported 3 undergraduate researchers, including 2 women and 2 Hispanic/Latino students. All three conducted summer research projects, and one is completing a senior honors thesis at UMass-Amherst, based on her summer research. Another student is preparing a manuscript from his research. In addition, five other undergraduate and recently graduated students were involved as volunteer field technicians. Four of the participants are now applying to graduate schools. Finally, the project involved Alan Snow, an urban forester with the Department of Conservation and Recreation for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. TARGET AUDIENCES: We have conducted outreach to our target audiences of urban foresters, arborists, and town tree wardens through a presentation at a regional professional meeting. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
Our work aims to simultaneously improve the efficiency of municipal and residential tree care, protect people and property from tree hazards, and improve habitat for wildlife in urban-suburban areas. Americans spent nearly 10 billion dollars on tree care in 2002 according to a survey funded by the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council, and hazard tree removal accounts for the major portion of municipal tree care budgets. Finding ways to protect habitat for birds and other species using cavity trees while mitigating critical hazards saves residents and taxpayers money that can then be allocated toward other critical needs such as tree planting. However, landowners must also weigh the possibility that a standing dead tree may fall, causing damage to property or causing human injury. Aesthetics, property value, social norms, and liability also come into play when making decisions about maintaining dead wood. Our survey research provides preliminary evidence that the perceived level of risk a tree poses to landowners affects their willingness to leave a dead tree for wildlife habitat. We also found that at lower levels of risk, the decision to leave a dead tree is determined by a combination of influences, including environmental beliefs, aesthetics, and financial issues. Finally, we found that urban residents have more negative attitudes toward dead or dying trees than do suburban residents.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 10/01/07 to 09/30/08
Outputs
OUTPUTS: We have begun doing outreach from this project through two trade publications, a presentation at a regional conference, presentations in numerous courses in the UMass urban forestry and horticulture programs, and at a national ecological conference in 2007. PARTICIPANTS: We added 2 new graduate students to the project during this reporting period: Rachel Levine (PhD student) and Janice Zepko (professional master's student). Through leveraging other funds, I supported 5 undergraduate researchers, including 2 women and 2 African American students. Four of the students conducted summer research projects, and one completed a senior thesis project at Hampshire College. Finally, the project involved Alan Snow, an urban forester with the Department of Conservation and Recreation for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. TARGET AUDIENCES: We have conducted outreach to our target audiences of urban foresters, arborists, and town tree wardens through publication in two newsletter publications serving this audience. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: One significant change was made to the project this year: the addition of a survey component addressing our objective 3 - investigating the options for implementing guidelines for altering existing arboricultural practices, both in terms of cost and willingness of landowners to implement new guidelines. We have received human subjects approval from our Institutional Review Board (IRB) for this project modification. A brief description of the survey and its role in the project is as follows: Cavity-nesting birds, such as woodpecker, owl, and chickadee species, mainly breed in cavities that have been excavated from the wood of dead trees (snags) or dead parts of live trees. However, snags and dead branches can be a hazard to humans and their property and can also be an eyesore. Current research has identified preferred breeding habitat trees of cavity-nesting birds and the hazard ratings for those trees in the unmanaged Quabbin Reservoir area. With this information, it may be possible to selectively preserve snags or stubs of dead branches for breeding habitat while reducing the risk to human life or property on private land. Assessing human willingness to accept new tree management policy is an integral part of enacting new conservation programs since public cooperation and participation has been shown to enhance the planning of new policy and has also been shown to lend legitimacy to the program itself. Focus groups will allow us to gather information on language and issues surrounding privately owned trees as wildlife habitat that can be used to design a survey which will assess landowner's willingness to accept risk from hazard trees in order to protect breeding habitat for cavity-nesting birds. Participants for both the focus groups and the survey will be landowners and professional arborists in suburban and urban Massachusetts.
Impacts
Our work aims to simultaneously improve the efficiency of municipal and residential tree care, protect people and property from tree hazards, and improve habitat for wildlife in urban-suburban areas. Americans spent nearly 10 billion dollars on tree care in 2002 according to a survey funded by the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council, and hazard tree removal accounts for the major portion of municipal tree care budgets. Finding ways to protect habitat for birds and other species using cavity trees while mitigating critical hazards saves residents and taxpayers money that can then be allocated toward other critical needs such as tree planting. Our studies to date show clear evidence that tree care practices have the potential to impact bird habitat. However, we also found opportunities for protecting some bird habitat while minimizing hazards to people and property. Nesting trees were significantly more likely to pose a hazard than nearby non-nesting trees of similar dimension. In particular, nesting trees had both larger defective parts and higher probability of failure (i.e. falling). However, not all highly hazard trees were used by birds and not all nesting trees were hazardous. Roughly one quarter of nesting trees had only moderate or low probability of failure. We are still conducting the analyses necessary to provide specific guidelines from our work for tree care professionals. In addition, we are assessing barriers to implementing new arboricultural practices through a survey of landowners.
Publications
- Warren, P. S. 2008. Hazards and Habitat: Personal reflections on what to do for birds in dead trees. Citizen Forester September Issue, No. 128.
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Progress 10/01/06 to 09/30/07
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Our work addresses both basic ecological questions and practices for management of hazard trees. The preliminary findings of our research have been shared and disseminated in two ways this year. First, we provided the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, an agency directly involved in managing hazard trees in recreational areas, with a report on our findings to date. Second, we shared our work with other researchers through presentations at a national conference and in two invited seminars. These presentations were as follows: 1) May 2007 invited seminar in the Department of Environmental Science and Forestry at North Carolina State University; 2) August 2007 presentation at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (abstract published); 3) September 2007 invited seminar in the Department of Biology at Roger Williams University, CT.
PARTICIPANTS: This year, we trained and employed one graduate student, one undergraduate student, and two other professionals. The undergraduate student is now conducting senior honors thesis research as part of the project.
TARGET AUDIENCES: Our work aims to improve management of hazard trees to enhance habitat availability for cavity nesting birds in urban-suburban areas. We plan to provide guidelines for altering tree care practices to arborists as well as to park managers.
PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: We anticipate no major modifications to our field research methods this coming year.
Impacts
No outcomes or impacts have been sought as yet. We anticipate providing a set of guidelines for tree management at the end of the project.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 10/01/05 to 09/30/06
Outputs
Our work aims to improve management of hazard trees to enhance habitat availability for cavity nesting birds in urban-suburban areas. We adopted a 3-pronged strategy to answering this question, focusing on the following objectives: (1) Determine the hazard characteristics of trees are used by birds for nesting in cavities. (2) Measure the contribution of broader scale (i.e. neighborhood level) patterns of tree decay and hazard level to the presence of cavity-nesting birds in urban-suburban areas. (3) Investigate the habitat value and economic cost of dead wood removed by arborists in the course of normal tree care. These three components will begin to develop a picture of a) the degree to which hazard tree management impacts urban birds and b) options for implementing guidelines for altering existing arboricultural practices. To address objective #1, we focused on area of relatively unmanaged open-grown trees in the protected areas surrounding the Quabbin Reservoir in
Massachusetts. In urban-suburban areas, hazards are typically removed too quickly for us to determine whether birds would use them as habitat. The Quabbin Reservoir is laced with former town sites and street trees exhibiting the same growth forms as trees in urban-suburban areas. But tree care practices were essentially halted in the 1930s when the reservoir was constructed. Thus, the trees at the Quabbin Reservoir have similar overall structure to urban trees, but have considerably more deadwood. We searched for and monitored bird nests in these open-grown street trees, and compared nesting trees to randomly selected nearby trees of similar dimension. We found clear evidence that tree care practices have the potential to impact bird habitat, but we also found opportunities for protecting some bird habitat while minimizing hazards to people and property. We monitored a total of 35 nests of 8 cavity nesting bird species. Nesting trees were significantly more likely to pose a hazard
than nearby non-nesting trees of similar dimension. In particular, nesting trees had both larger defective parts and higher probability of failure (i.e. falling). However, not all highly hazard trees were used by birds, and not all nesting trees were hazardous. Roughly one quarter of nesting trees had only moderate or low probability of failure. A manuscript from this work is in preparation for submission to the Journal of Wildlife Management. Our work on objectives #2 and #3 is still developing. We are making use of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study Long-term Ecological Research site (BES LTER - website: beslter.org), an ongoing research project in which birds are counted annually at over 100 urban sites. In 2006, we conducted surveys for deadwood and for tree hazards in transects around bird count locations. Analyses of these data are still in progress. In Massachusetts, we conducted a pilot assessment of actual tree care projects in the Pioneer Valley. We traveled with arborists to
residential job sites and examined the cost of deadwood removal and the potential wildlife value of the wood removed. This pilot work will form the basis for a more extensive survey and cost-benefit analysis.
Impacts
Our work aims to simultaneously improve the efficiency of municipal and residential tree care, protect people and property from tree hazards, and improve habitat for wildlife in urban-suburban areas. Americans spent nearly 10 billion dollars on tree care in 2002 according to a survey funded by the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council, and hazard tree removal accounts for the major portion of municipal tree care budgets. Finding ways to protect habitat for birds and other species using cavity trees while mitigating critical hazards saves residents and taxpayers money that can then be allocated toward other critical needs such as tree planting.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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