Progress 05/01/23 to 04/30/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences for this project include nonindustrial private forest owners, federal and state agencies that manage forested land, land management professionals including foresters and wildlife biologists, and the general public. In this project period, we attempted to reach these audiences through multiple approaches, with an emphasis on face-to-face presentations and scholarly publications. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?One MS student completed his thesis, and another participated in and was trained in small mammal surveys. Three undergraduates participated directly in field research associated with this project. Project results were incorporated in multiple university classes, including Forest Inventory and Monitoring, and Mammalogy. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In this project period, we disseminated our results and recommendations primarily through presentations at meetings of foresters, wildlife biologists, and other stakeholders, along with invited presentations at international meetings of researchers working in related fields. The completion of significant bodies of analysis (as reflected in the master's thesis and related works) will allow us to push out multiple peer-reviewed journal articles in the final project period. We lead a field tour at the Bartlett Experimental Forest for a visiting international delegation in summer 2023, and we expect to run a similar tour for regional natural resource management professionals and policymakers in summer 2024. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the final year of the project, we expect to submit and publish multiple peer-reviewed journal articles, reflecting our results on the structural and functional diversity of trees, birds, and mammals, and their feedbacks on ecosystem services. We will lead field tours at our study sites, continue presenting in face-to-face venues that will reach professional, technical, and scientific audiences, and seek a venue for a non-technical summary of management recommendations.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Under our first objective, examination of structural, functional, and taxonomic complexity, we completed initial analyses of long-term data from the Bartlett Experimental Forest that will provide the basis for a peer-reviewed journal article in the next project period. Aspects of this work informed a series of invited presentations to scientific and technical audiences. Under our second goal, MS student Michael Thompson completed and defended his thesis, which will also be submitted as a peer-reviewed journal article in the final project period. His results highlight a nonlinear relationship between forest degradation (as defined in this project using the Gunn et al. timber-oriented framework) and avian functional diversity. They also highlight specific silvicultural recommendations, such as retention of long-lived conifers within a hardwood dominated matrix forest, that have specific positive impacts on functional diversity of the bird community. Working with the field and passive acoustic monitoring data from our last field season, we identified shortcomings in the "automatic" processing of passive acoustic data that would lead to a distortion of community impacts if those increasingly popular approaches were used in a standalone fashion. We developed and tested methods for correcting those data for mis-identification by artificial intelligence software, and we incorporated those results and recommendations into a draft manuscript for submission in the next reporting period. Analyses addressing Objective 3, the ecosystem service impacts of functional diversity, were also incorporated in Thompson's thesis along with related presentations to foresters, wildlife biologists, and other stakeholders. We will be focusing on landowner and natural resource manager communications based on these results during the final project performance period. To support final data analysis and other products, we completed limited small mammal surveys at the Bartlett Experiemental Forest during the 2023 field season, and also installed passive acoustic devices for avian community monitoring at our Nulhegan site.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Ducey, M.J. 2023. How should we measure complexity in a complex forest? Invited keynote. COMFOR-SUDOE: Integrated and intelligent information management of complex forests and mixed-species plantations in southwest Europe. Madrid, Spain, April 13-14, 2023.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Thompson, M., M.J. Ducey, J.S. Gunn, and R.J. Rowe. 2024. Impacts of Forest Degradation on Avian Functional Diversity. Rhode Island Audubon Symposium, Providence, RI, February 2024.
- Type:
Theses/Dissertations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Thompson, M.S. 2023, Avian Functional Diversity Response to Changes in Forest Structure and Degradation in Northern New England. MS Thesis, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Thompson, M., M.J. Ducey, J.S. Gunn, and R.J. Rowe. 2023. Post-Processing BirdNET Identification to Maximize Community Assessment. Northeast Natural History Conference, Burlington, VT, April 21-23, 2023.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Thompson, M., M.J. Ducey, J.S. Gunn, and R.J. Rowe. 2024. Impacts of Forest Degradation on Avian Functional Diversity. Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, Portland, OR, August 6-11, 2023.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Ducey, M.J. 2023. The northern New England forest: what is its past? What is its future? Invited talk. 1st U.S.-Spanish Summer School on Climate Change and Ecosystem Management, Aguilar de Campoo, Spain, September 25-29, 2023.
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Progress 05/01/22 to 04/30/23
Outputs
Target Audience:This was an active outreach period for the project, with target audiences including foresters and other natural resource professionals, the research community in forest biometrics and wildlife science, and graduate and undergraduate students. Changes/Problems:Our project continues to be slightly behind schedule due to COVID-19 impacts on what would have been our first field season in Year 1 of the project. Data cleaning, analysis, and interpretation have had to await results from the second field season, which occurred during this reporting period. Otherwise, the project is on track and proceeding according to plan. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During the 2022 field season we trained two undergraduate technicians in identification of over 100 bird species by both site and sound. field technicians also learned valuable skills in forest structure measurements including horizontal point sampling, tree height measurements with vertex hypsometer, downed woody material line intersect sampling, and tree species identification. In addition to on location point counts, field technicians also validate a large subsample of audio data collected from Audiomoth recorders totaling 500 recordings over 25 hours. Significant progress was made by a field technician working simultaneously on his master's thesis, which we expect will be defended early in the next reporting period. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We used our project results in a series of presentations to professional and research audiences, focusing on target communities including foresters and other natural resource professionals. These included presentations at the New England Society of American Foresters, the national meeting of the Society of American Foresters, and the 2nd North American Mensurationists Conference. Project results also featured in guest lectures in two UNH courses, NR 615 Wildlife Habitats and NR 642 Biogeography, along with lectures in PD Ducey's course, NR 749/849 Forest Inventory. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period we will be focused on the defense of the master's student on the project, and on publication of peer-reviewed journal articles.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During this reporting period, we completed a second field season focused on continuatino of bird surveys, and vegetation measurement at both our Nulhegan and Bartlett Experimental Forest sites. We added an additional 6539 observations to our dataset in 2022 and 12 new species to the project including Red Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra), Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula), Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina), White-winged Crossbill (Loxia leucoptera), Canada Jay (Perisoreus canadensis), Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina), Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor), Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula), Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias), Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), and Barred Owl (Strix varia). This dataset will be used in conjunction with previous years to develop an understanding of shifts in functional diversity across the landscape. In addition to bird surveys we conducted 255 new horizontal point sampling plots across 13 new stands in the Bartlett Experimental Forest, with additional plot work at Nulhegan. We also completed analysis of benchmark carbon stocks at a reference old-growth site so that those values (along with tree species functional diversity) can be included in a comparative analysis with the Bartlett Experimental Forest.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Ducey, M.J. 2022. Do mensurationists dream of electric trees? Invited plenary. 2nd North American Forest Mensurationists Conference, Portland, Oregon, Dec. 11-14, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Giguere, H., Ducey, M.J., Fenwick, M.A., and Gove, J.H. 2022. Intensive Assessment of Aboveground Carbon Pools in an Old-Growth Northern Hardwood Forest. 2022 Society of American Foresters National Convention, Baltimore, MD, September 20-24, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Ducey, M.J. and Kershaw, J.A. Jr. 2022. Alternative expressions for stand diameter in complex forests. 2022 Northeastern Mensurationists Organization Annual Meeting, Portsmouth, NH, May 22-24, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Giguere, H., Ducey, M.J., Fenwick, M.A., and Gove, J.H. 2022. Intensive Assessment of Aboveground Carbon Pools in an Old-Growth Northern Hardwood Forest. 2022 Northeastern Mensurationists Organization Annual Meeting, Portsmouth, NH, May 22-24, 2022.
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Progress 05/01/21 to 04/30/22
Outputs
Target Audience:The primary audiences for our project include landowners, land managers (foresters, wildlife biologists, and related professionals), and the forest conservation community. We also hope to reach K-12 and other general educational audiences through our work on this project. During Year 2, we were able to reach all of these audiences through a combination of professional meetings, face-to-face and online educational activities, and development of practical tools for landowners and land managers. Changes/Problems:COVID-19 presented ongoing challenges, especially in the area of field housing and logistics, but we were able to overcome those limitations and conduct a field campaign that met all of our objectives. COVID-19 also limited some options for meeting outreach goals but we expect to press heavily on those in the coming year. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Two graduate students worked on the project: Michael Thompson, working primarily with bird and vegetation data, and Ben Borgmann-Winter, leading the mammal sampling crew. In addition, 5 undergraduate students received training as field technicians working with birds, mammals, and vegetation. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Despite continuing limitations due to COVID-19, we were able to reach several audiences of interest through online and face-to-face venues. The initial release of the online degradation tool will be accompanied by a non-technical publication in Year 3, and with the completion of a second field season in Year 3 we expect to move forward with publication of initial peer-reviewed journal articles. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Early in Year 3, we expect to complete our second field season, with bird survey work at Nulhegan and Bartlett, continuing mammal work at Bartlett, and vegetation sampling at Bartlett. This data collection will allow us to move forward with formal analyses to address the sequence of objectives outlined in our original proposal. We also expect to work heavily on outreach efforts, including publication of guidance for the degradation app, initial peer-reviewed publications, and presentations to scientific and land management audiences.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In Year 2, we were able to conduct a highly successful initial field season following the COVID-19 imposed delays of the previous year. We met all planned objectives for bird, small mammal, and vegetation survey work at Nulhegan Basin, and all planned objectives for bird and small mammal work at Bartlett. Vegetation work is planned for the 2022 field season at Bartlett. Initial data analysis of the bird data from Nulhegan showed that we detected 64 species, distributed across 21 families of birds. Subsequent analysis in terms of four different functional diversity (FD) indices, including functional richness, functional evenness, functional dispersion, and functional divergence, revealed nonlinear relations with forest overstory degradation and other metrics of forest overstory structure. These initial results and their implications were shared with land management professionals at the 2022 New England Society of American Foresters conference, and internally to research audiences at UNH through the Graduate Student Research Conference and our departmental seminar. As part of the effort to analyze forest overstory data, graduate student Thompson developed an RShiny app which is available for open use by foresters and other professionals to facilitate calculation of forest degradation categories and other supporting metrics. In addition, during the 2021 field season Thompson and graduate student Ben Borgmann-Winter developed an iNaturalist project to help consolidate citizen scientist sightings of wildlife within the Nulhegan Basin. This project has since grown to nearly 100 different observers, over 1,500 observations tallying 593 different species within the refuge. The most abundant taxa found in the project are Plants (228 species, 38.6%), insects (212 species, 35.9%), fungi (56 species, 9.5%), birds (50 species 8.5%), and mammals (15 species 2.5%). We expect to continue and broaden this work during the 2022 field season.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Thompson, M., Rowe, R., Ducey, M. Gunn, J. Impacts of Forest Degradation on Avian Functional Diversity. Graduate Research Conference, University of New Hampshire. April 2022 (poster)
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Thompson, M., Rowe, R., Ducey, M. Gunn, J. Impacts of Forest Degradation on Avian Functional Diversity. Natural Resources and the Environment Department Seminar, University of New Hampshire. April 2022 (oral)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Thompson, M., Rowe, R., Ducey, M. Gunn, J. Impacts of Forest Degradation on Avian Functional Diversity. Northeast Society of American Foresters Conference 2022. March 2022, (oral)
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Progress 05/01/20 to 04/30/21
Outputs
Target Audience:The COVID outbreak significantly impacted outreach efforts during the first year of our project. We were able to engage and liaise successfully with Federal agency foresters and wildlife biologists. Concepts, principles, and research topics associated with our new project were shared with undergraduate and graduate students at UNH through courses in Forest Inventory and Landscape Ecology, and through our Departmental seminar series (held online due to the pandemic). During the course of this first year, we developed outreach and contingency plans to reach the full set of target audiences for our project, including landowners, foresters, and other natural resource professionals along with the academic/scientific audience. We expect to begin outreach efforts with these audiences in the second year of the project. Changes/Problems:The single biggest challenge for this project has been the COVID-19 pandemic, which essentially shut down field research at our partner facilities and prevented travel for research under UNH policy. The pandemic also led to closure or cancellation of many of the meetings and other venues we had hoped to use for initial outreach activity. As a result, work in Year 1 of the project has focused on planning, development of alternatives (in case outreach activities are further curtailed), and other inward-focused tasks as we look ahead to the coming year. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?One master's student has begun work on the project and has been actively involved in project planning and data analysis tasks. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We are planning a full field season in Summer 2021 to include bird and mammal surveys at our Nulhegan and Bartlett sites, along with completion of the Nulhegan vegetation sampling. We are making plans to present initial project results at regional conferences, provided those are held in 2021/2022, and developing outreach materials for other audiences. Initial data analysis by the graduate student will have informed our field season design, and also positioned the graduate student for rapidly engaging with new data once those have been collected.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The incipient COVID pandemic closed research facilities, and required UNH to impose restrictive conditions on the conduct of field research. As a result our efforts focused on planning the field campaign for the 2021 field season, development of relationships with USFWS and USFS scientists, and preliminary analysis of existing data sets to guide field season planning and design. We also initiated work on applied tools for forest managers that we hope to beta-test and share with target audiences in Year 2.
Publications
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