Urban forests on college campuses: Opportunities for undergraduate research

Background/Question/Methods

As urban centers continue to expand rapidly, college campuses have strived to protect green space for aesthetics, recreation, and future development. These often underutilized areas can support long-term undergraduate research on the ecological effects of urbanization. Typically student research at undergraduate institutions is limited by funding, facilities, equipment, student/advisor time, and access to long-term datasets. The establishment of a permanent study area on campus can alleviate these obstacles, and provide a place where students can test their own hypotheses and learn ecological field techniques in a familiar and easily accessible environment. We present a case study of a recently instituted urban forest plot on the Meredith College campus in Raleigh, NC. In July 2007, we established a permanent 1-ha plot along the edge of an oak-hickory-maple forest with 10 x 10 m subplots.
Results/Conclusions

Since its creation, five undergraduate students enrolled in the department’s research seminar and three biology courses have conducted research projects on the plot. One student (A. Powell) tagged, identified, and measured all trees ≥ 5 cm DBH on the plot (818 trees total), and created a descriptive key and herbarium voucher collection for all 21 species. Other students (C. Jones, S. Roberson, and B. Carr) have live-trapped four species of small mammals on the plot over multiple seasons (4280 trapping nights, 376 trapping events, and 120 individual mammals) and examined mammal distribution and population dynamics relative to the forest edge, available ground cover, and ecto- and endoparasite loads. Another student (A. Simmons) is currently studying insect herbivory on subcanopy trees. All research projects have benefitted from each other by sharing spatially and temporally tied information that is constantly updated by the students in a common database. Future research students and courses will have access to this database to formulate their own questions. Funding for the project has been secured through small equipment grants and summer research stipends provided to the students and faculty by internal sources. Students have gained experience in permanent plot design and maintenance, hypothesis formulation and testing, terrestrial field techniques, statistical analysis, and professional communication of findings within (research seminar, campus-wide conferences, and honors theses) and beyond (national conferences and manuscripts) the home institution. If established on campuses across the country, permanent plot studies can encourage collaborative research efforts among faculty and students of undergraduate institutions while providing key ecological findings.