Treesearch

The prevalence, intensity, or outcome of interference competition and interspecific killing between predominantly solitary species operating on large spatial scales is challenging to document or test. Here, we present a detailed account of inter- and intraspecific interactions from contemporaneous GPS location data and in-field investigation. In June 2018, a GPS-collared female cougar (Puma concolor) maintained strong site fidelity for a period of 19 days, indicative of parturition behavior and establishment of a nursery site. In early July 2018, three GPS-collared black bears (Ursus...

Urban trees can reduce stormwater runoff and mitigate flood risk by increasing infiltration, and storing water in the soil, while reducing nutrient loading, and improving water quality in developed areas. Tree water use can constitute a major component of evapotranspiration, but knowledge gaps about how the local environment affects transpiration limits our ability to predict how management will affect hydrology. In this study, we investigated the influence of management context on the transpiration of deciduous tree species and the relationship between environmental factors (soil moisture...

With the onset of rapid climate change and the legacy of past forest management and fire suppression policies, the capacity for forested landscapes to maintain core functionality and processes is being challenged. As such, managers are tasked with increasing the pace and scale of management to mitigate negative impacts of future large disturbances and improve resilience and climate adaptation of large landscapes. Such efforts require consensus building, with partners and stakeholders to determine where to allocate scarce resources. We present a methodology to identify strategic (where to...

Temperate forests, characterized by cyclical annual climate with distinct seasons, occur in some of the most densely populated regions of the world. Societies depend on these forests to provision ecosystem services such as timber, water, recreation, and cultural resources. However, climate change threatens the health and continued provisioning of the critical services these forests supply. In this chapter, we provide an overview of observed and projected climate change effects on temperate forests, with a focus on disturbance, ecosystem shifts, and ecosystem services. We provide context...

We ask how environmental justice and urban ecology have influenced one another over the past 25 years in the context of the US Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program and Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) project. BES began after environmental justice emerged through activism and scholarship in the 1980s but spans a period of increasing awareness among ecologists and environmental practitioners. The work in Baltimore provides a detailed example of how ecological research has been affected by a growing understanding of environmental justice. The shift shows how unjust environmental...

This paper builds on the expansion of urban ecology from a biologically based discipline—ecology in the city—to an increasingly interdisciplinary field—ecology of the city—to a transdisciplinary, knowledge to action endeavor—an ecology for and with the city. We build on this “prepositional journey” by proposing a transformative shift in urban ecology, and we present a framework for how the field may continue this shift. We conceptualize that urban ecology is in a state of flux, and that this shift is needed to transform urban ecology into a more engaged and action based field, and one that...

The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of recreation as people flocked outdoors for socially distant activities. However, gaps remain in our understanding of how pandemics impact recreation and the unequal distribution of impacts across communities. Our study used cell phone data from Safegraph to explore census block level changes to local park visitation in California, USA, during the first 27 weeks of the pandemic. We utilized Latent Class Analysis to examine visitation based on sociodemographic groupings of race/ethnicity, income, and age. We found that African American...

Long-term urban soil studies provide details of how urban soils develop over time. Urban soils are affected by regional and local pressures related to air pollution and introduced species such as earthworms and vegetation, which can affect change within relatively short periods of time. In Baltimore, forest soils of an urban–rural gradient were re-sampled, and it was found that, over two decades, calcium (Ca) concentration and pH had increased. These forest soils are habitats for populations of earthworms, which feed on the leaf litter and, consequently, locally alter the forest floor....

An important consideration in studies of the relationship between greenspace exposure and health is the use of mapped data to assign geographic exposures to participants. Previous studies have used validated data from municipal park departments to describe the boundaries of public greenspaces. However, this approach assumes that these data accurately describe park boundaries, that formal parks fully capture the park and greenspace exposure of residents, and (for studies that use personal GPS traces to assign participant exposures) that time spent within these boundaries represents time...

Parks can provide a low-cost setting for safe physical activity, but older adults are underrepresented among park users in the United States. Using data from a population-representative survey in 2015 and 2018 among adults aged 60 years and older living in Philadelphia, we tested whether perceived access was a mechanism by which objectively-measured park access predicted self-reported physical activity. After controlling for individual-level factors and neighborhood characteristics, we found a statistically significant pathway from overall park area and within-park tree canopy to increased...