2023 Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Cooperative Conference

Authors: Jacquelyn Gill, University of Maine
Caitlin McDonough-MacKenzie, Bennington College
Jose Meireles, University of Maine
isaac Overcast, California Academy of Sciences
Andrew Rominger, University of Hawaii

The challenges of global change urgently require an improved understanding of the mechanisms driving biodiversity dynamics (i.e., the turnover of populations, taxa, and communities through time and space). Such dynamics are the aggregate of complex processes playing out across the landscape involving functional traits and genetics interacting with the environment, but these are rarely integrated, which undermines our ability to understand, and thus predict, biodiversity dynamics in a changing world. Alpine ecosystems are a model system for understanding how communities of fragmented populations have responded to dynamic environments through time. Considered highly vulnerable to global change, alpine plants in the Northeastern U.S. are scattered across small, high-elevation habitat islands that have sheltered tundra relicts since regional deglaciation ~13,000 years ago. And yet, alpine plants also experience some of the most extreme seasonal climate changes on Earth, were highly displaced by Pleistocene glaciations, and have persisted as small populations of tundra relicts through periods of warming during the mid-Holocene, the Medieval Warm Period, and the past century. This long-term persistence - despite geographic isolation and high exposure to warming - make alpine plant adaptation and persistence under climate change an important research and conservation problem. What mechanisms have allowed alpine plant communities to persist during past climate changes, and will they persist into the future? Here, we share a series of aims and approaches designed to tackle this overarching question as part of a newly funded Biodiversity on a Changing Planet grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation. Our interdisciplinary project will identify mechanisms underlying the persistence of tundra relicts in Northeast alpine zones since deglaciation, focusing on 12 alpine summits spread across the Adirondacks (NY), the Green (VT) and White (NH) Mountains, and Katahdin (ME). To understand the mechanisms driving biodiversity dynamics across this archipelago of "sky islands", we will combine (a) sequencing of ancient DNA, (b) field data on species diversity, microclimate, and functional traits, (c) common garden experiments, and (d) population genomics to reveal past and contemporary demographic dynamics and clarify the role of microrefugia, phenotypic plasticity, and local adaptation. Data from each approach will be used to develop a process-based model design to understand of how communities assembled and persisted through past climate changes as an integration of diversity at the level of species, traits, and genes. Results will be shared in collaboration with regional managers to help conserve Northeastern alpine and protect these unique communities under the threat of global change.

Authors: Meryl Callaway, University of Vermont

Anthropogenic disturbance and rapid environmental changes are threatening ecosystems and opening larger conversations about ecosystem conservation. This project seeks to determine the effectiveness of Vermont's conservation strategy in protecting biological hotspots within high-priority interior forests across the state. Using GIS as a tool for analysis, the overlap between protected areas, biological hotspots, and high-priority interior forests was located to understand what is being conserved and how well these areas are removed from outside anthropogenic disturbance. These findings were then used to identify areas that need further support, providing valuable insight for future conservation strategies.

Authors: Christopher Lawrence, Archana Tripathy, Paul Casson, John Campbell, James Shanley, Haider Khwaja, Mirza Hussain, Dan Kelting, Liz Yerger, Sara Lance
Whiteface Mountain (WFM) in the Adirondack Mountains in Upstate New York is home to an historic cloud water monitoring program, with the chemical composition of cloud water being measured as far back the 1970s. This site was largely founded to investigate the chemical formation of sulfate (SO4) within cloud droplets and to monitor the progress of the Clean Air Act Amendments of the 1990s. Due to these amendments, there has been a steady decrease in SO4 and to a lesser extent, nitrate (NO3) in both WFM precipitation and cloud water. These decreasing trends in SO4 and NO3 coincide with an increasing trend in organic carbon (OC) in WFM cloud water and increasing OC trend in rainwater at Hubbard Brook, NH and potentially at Sleepers River, VT. In addition to the increasing OC trend, there is an increasing trend in measured cation/anion ratios, which correlate strongly with OC at WFM, indicating a growing but unconstrained role of organic compounds in atmospheric aqueous chemistry. To better constrain this important chemistry and speciate some of the important organic compounds, organic acids including formic, acetic and oxalic acid were added to the regular suite of chemical species measured in summertime WFM cloud water. In this presentation, we provide a first attempt to quantify the role of wildfire smoke on the growing OC trend in cloud water at WFM. The NOAA Hazard Mapping System Fire and Smoke product is used to identify potentially smoke influenced cloud samples. Statistical techniques are used to compare wildfire versus non-wildfire cloud water samples to determine the impacts of wildfire smoke on cloud chemical composition. We find a growing percentage of smoke-influenced cloud water samples, which also exhibited greater OC than the non-smoke-influenced samples for nearly every year since OC measurements began in 2009. However, the non-smoke-influenced cloud water samples still showed a strong increasing OC trend over this 12 year record, suggesting that at least two independent processes are driving the observed increasing OC trend at WFM: 1) increasing frequency of wildfire smoke events, and perhaps more importantly, 2) a growing influence of “secondary processes” driving gas phase organic compounds to the condensed phase.

Authors: Anoob Prakash, Department of Plant Biology, University of Vermont
Stephen Keller, Department of Plant Biology, University of Vermont

Climate change and anthropogenic land use are increasingly threatening the health and productivity of natural forest ecosystems. Assisted migration and reforestation are important tools to help mitigate these impacts, with recent calls for large-scale tree planting campaigns to help offset climate change. However, important questions remain about how best to source restoration seeds to ensure vigorous establishment and future adaptability. An often unaddressed issue is how to strategically sample the local gene pool to maximally capture standing genetic diversity while also avoiding the genetic load of deleterious mutations. This optimization of diversity while minimizing load should ideally also be accompanied by increasing the available genetic variation in quantitative traits to ensure future evolvability and adaptation. The benefits of this three-part strategy (diversity-load-evolvability) are to increase early-life fitness at planting, while also boosting the evolutionary potential to respond to future stressors. We provide a case study of our approach based on the forest tree red spruce (Picea rubens). Using published exome-capture sequencing, we first demonstrate a computational approach to bringing genomics to the field by finding the best n-sets from a candidate list of source populations local to the region of restoration that collectively achieve high diversity and minimal load, while also increasing evolvability in quantitative traits. Three different best n-sets of sources were then selected for collection and propagation, corresponding to target restoration sites in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia of importance to the Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Central Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative (CASRI). After 1 year of propagation under greenhouse conditions, TNC and CASRI planted 58,000 of these seedlings across 3 sites, totalling 255 acres. A subset of seedlings at each site were monitored 1 year later for establishment success and evolvability of height growth. Our study shows the potential for integrating genomics into local-scale restoration, and the importance of building partnerships between academic researchers and applied conservation managers.

Authors: Mark Ashton, Yale University
Mark Ducey, University of New Hampshire
Mark Bradford, Yale University
Sara Kuebbing, Yale University

Forest management is an important carbon dioxide removal pathway. It harnesses the direct air capture function of forest vegetation through photosynthesis and provides a multitude of carbon storage facilities including various forms of plant biomass and wood products. Some forest advocates argue that the best forest management option for climate benefits is to maximize growth and stop cutting of all forests. Meanwhile, other forest advocates support active management, involving forest cutting, as a means of sequestering carbon, providing habitat, and increasing ecosystem resilience to natural disturbances. Previous modeling comparisons of the carbon benefits of various harvesting forest management actions have not considered how chronic disturbances or reduced natural regeneration of forests may impact carbon dynamics. Exclusion of common forest disturbances, like pest and pathogen outbreaks, windstorms, or drought, from forest growth and yield models may lead to incomplete conclusions about the impacts of forest management for timber harvest under various future disturbance regimes. Here, we used the U.S. Forest Service Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) to simulate the effect of forest cutting practices on forest carbon sequestration and storage in the absence and presence of chronic natural disturbances. We gathered forest inventory data in southern New England and southeastern New York. We simulated effects of three forest cutting practices: no-cut, diameter-limit timber cut, and shelterwood regeneration cut. We adjusted tree mortality of specific species groups and size classes to mimic the effect of natural disturbances including drought, windstorm, pests, and diseases. We found that under natural disturbances, shelterwood regeneration cut promotes regeneration of more diverse tree species that leads to faster growth and higher stocking level than no-cut or diameter-limit timber cut. No cutting and diameter-limit timber cutting leads to lower total basal area over time and losses of valuable tree species such as oak. Forest cutting leads to short term carbon losses comparing to no-cutting for about 50 years, but higher carbon storage in the long term especially when accounting for the substitution effects of wood products.

Authors: Cassandra Wolfanger, Audubon Vermont
Margaret Fowle, Audubon Vermont

Birds and pollinators are essential to agricultural crop production, pest control, and general ecosystem biodiversity, but have declined sharply range-wide in recent decades, including in Vermont and the surrounding region. In response to these trends, Audubon Vermont and partners launched a Bird and Bee Friendly Farming Program to promote and implement practices on farms that provide essential foraging, breeding, and shelter resources that benefit birds and pollinators. As the program has expanded, we have identified the need for an assessment tool that standardizes data collection, increases efficiency and consistency, and evaluates post-implementation success. In 2023, Audubon Vermont and partners were awarded a 3-year Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) from the Natural Resource Conservation Service to support the design, development, and piloting of a tool on Vermont farms. Most existing assessment tools primarily focus on abiotic resources such as water quality, soil health, and nutrient pollution. Our complementary approach will focus on multiple biotic metrics to encourage a more comprehensive and descriptive on-farm decision-making process that integrates biological diversity and ecosystem services. The tool will compile habitat information, score current conditions, identify and prioritize opportunities for enhancement strategies, and evaluate responses post-implementation. Examples of data inputs include percent invasive cover, native vegetation composition, structure of edge habitat, cover crop diversity, grassland and pasture management, surrounding landscape features, and bird and bee species abundance and diversity. The tool will use inputs to generate a list of recommended practices for restoration based on an ecological value ranking system and criteria of feasibility and cost. Geo-referenced platforms will likely host the tool's software and Audubon Vermont staff will work closely with farmers to test the tool on-the-ground. Important features include Vermont state-specific metrics relating to native plant, bird, and bee species, a user-friendly design for conservation biologists in the field, outputs that are easy to understand for biologists and farmers, and the ability to measure change and improvements over time. This tool will provide the opportunity to improve communication, increase engagement, demonstrate accomplishments, encourage the adoption of more conservation practices, and increase acres managed for birds and bees, allowing us to work towards our overall objective to slow or reverse the declines in these communities in Vermont. In this poster presentation, we will describe the issues facing birds and pollinators and present the proposed tool's design, solutions, and methods, with its expected outcomes and impact. We are excited to share the project and are hopeful the conversations and networking fostered by presenting at the FEMC conference will enrich our planning process.

Authors: Paula Murakami, USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station
Laura DeWald, University of Kentucky
Dana Nelson, USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station
Chris Maier, USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station

White oak (Quercus alba) occurs throughout eastern U.S. forests where it is an important component of forest biodiversity. It is highly valued by wildlife as well as the forest products industry. There is concern relating to three components of the white oak resource: 1. regeneration of oak seedlings and saplings in existing stands, 2. re-establishment of oak within stands that have been harvested, and 3. future availability of desirable quality oak. Environmental threats, including invasives and pests, as well as a warming climate, challenge the long-term sustainability of this vital forest tree species and its habitat.

We planted a common garden on the Green Mountain National Forest (GMNF) in East Dorset, Vermont in April 2023, as part of a collaboration with the White Oak Genetics and Tree Improvement Project at the University of Kentucky. The aim of the project is to evaluate climate adaptive traits, assess suitability on a wide range of sites, identify superior performance, and inform restoration and assisted migration strategies for the species. We planted 20 replicates of 44 half-sib families in 2023 and plan to add additional families over the next two years. The families are broadly grouped geographically; an eastern transect from North Carolina to Vermont, and a mid-western transect from Ohio to Minnesota.

We will present some early life fitness results relating to germination, growth, survival in the field, as well as freeze damage observations related to the May 18, 2023, event that caused widespread damage throughout northern New England and New York. In the years to come, we will assess their survival, growth, and response to climate via assessments of spring foliar phenology and winter cold tolerance.

Authors: Anthony D'Amato, University of Vermont
Matt Fitzpatrick, University of Maryland
John Buttnor, US Forest Service
Stephen Keller, University of Vermont

Red spruce (Picea rubens) is a conifer found at high elevations throughout the Appalachian Mountains and in northern maritime forests, where it is valued for its timber, wildlife habitat, and ecosystem services. Red spruce's highly fragmented distribution and sensitivity to heat and drought indicate that the tree is highly vulnerable to climate change, and its importance to eastern forest ecosystems makes it a target of significant conservation and restoration efforts, including assisted migration. The scale of red spruce restoration projects is on the order of hundreds of thousands of seedlings per year, yet the seed required to meet this demand currently comes from single-tree collections with limited provenance diversity. Although restoration plantings have historically followed a "local is best" paradigm, climate change is disrupting local adaptation and shifting prior gene-environment relationships. Our team has mapped climate-adaptive diversity across the range of red spruce, integrating functional population genomics with spatial models to identify stands most likely to experience a disruption in climate adaptation and to predict which trees should be moved where to maximize the likelihood of successful translocation under future climate.

Here, we combine genomic and climate data and model genomic offsets, a measure of climate maladaptation, to select 15-20 red spruce stands from which we will collect scions and graft them onto root stock for future out-planting into a seed orchard site in the Green Mountain National Forest. We have identified 50-100 genotypes in total, capturing a diversity of genotypes adapted to a range of future climate conditions anticipated in the northeastern U.S. by the end of the century. Our objective is to conserve climate-adaptive genetic diversity in red spruce and produce at-scale quantities of seed for restoration and assisted migration plantings under future climate change.

Authors: Steven Travis, University of New England
Sienna Matregrano, University of New England
Greg Zogg, University of New England

Although forest monitoring programs typically quantify the diversity of overstory trees, plant genetic diversity has largely been neglected despite its potential value to comprehensive monitoring efforts. We assessed the genetic relatedness of red oak trees (Quercus rubra), based upon fragment analysis of 10 microsatellite loci, in a second-growth forest at the University of New England in southern Maine (ca. 150 ha). We sampled leaf tissue from all overstory trees within long-term monitoring plots (three, 20m x 60m each) so as to determine how plant genetic structure varies at the scale of meters and 10's of meters (n = 97), as well as along a ca. 1.2km transect that included the plots so as to broaden our scale up to 100's of meters (n = 48). A thorough spatial genetic analysis revealed that only mature oaks growing within roughly 5m of each other share an average level of relatedness significantly exceeding that of non-relatives. Coupled with the small but significant levels of genetic differentiation we observed among plots separated by as little as 500m, as well as highly significant levels of inbreeding, red oaks show the potential to create and adapt to highly localized microenvironments within New England forest communities. These data will serve as baseline info for tracking changes in tree genetics over time and will be used to inform our understanding of community characteristics such as the composition of soil microbial communities.

Authors: Tony D'Amato, University of Vermont
Jill Levine, University of Vermont

The University of Vermont Forestry Program and Forest Ecosystems Monitoring Cooperative are excited to promote an online community of practice, the Northeast Silviculture Library. The Northeast Silviculture Library (NESL) is a virtual symposium of silvicultural prescriptions and associated outcomes of actual management activities. Personal experiences gained from managers across the region serve as a powerful source of information to address current management challenges given every silviculture treatment is an experiment with every forest manager both a teacher and a learner. It is a place for foresters and other resource managers to exchange real, on-the-ground examples and outcomes of their management activities, with the overall goal of increasing knowledge of how to best steward the changing landscape of the Northeast to promote sustainability and adaptability. Example Silviculture Library entries from all six New England states and New York will be highlighted.

Authors: Lukas Kopacki, FEMC, ArborVox
Jen Pontius, FEMC, UVM
Tony D'Amato, UVM
Jim Duncan, VT DNR

The uncertainty around the impacts of changing climate poses a significant challenge to sustaining forest ecosystems in the northeast. Important work has been done downscaling projected changes in climate conditions, modeling shifts in suitable habitat, and mapping disturbance patterns across the region. The goal of this project is to aggregate these valuable but disparate spatial data sets to quantify relative exposure to climate change impacts at the species, and community level. The resulting climate exposure maps provide insight to how the degree of potential risk exposure vary across the landscape an across species. Results indicate that at the stand level, highest overall exposure to climate, disturbance, and limitations in suitable habitat for current species distributions occurs in mountainous regions throughout the region and southeastern Maine. Across the region relative exposure increases by 4 percent between low and high emission scenarios. Much of our current management is guided by the outcomes of decades of silviculture research, yet many of the conditions under which those results were generated are rapidly changing. These relative exposure maps can inform where climate adaptation management applications may be most necessary over time.

Authors: Soren Donisvitch, Alison Adams, Matthias Sirch, Elissa Schuett, Larissa Robinov, Jerome Lee, Jennifer Pontius
This project aimed to investigate the impact of recreational hiking and biking on forest health. The analysis utilized several geospatial data sources, including ForWarn sentinel data, STRAVA recreational use data, NLCD forest data, and USDA soil survey data. The primary objectives were to determine whether recreational activities affect canopy health and if so, whether those effects can be detected with ForWarn; identify areas where soils are more susceptible to recreational use; and assess the disturbance of wildlife in forested landscapes used for recreational activities.

Authors: John Daigle, University of Maine

The primary objective of this study was to detect vegetation cover changes resulting from visitor use by using remote sensing technology. The second and broader objective was to identify the utility of remote sensing technology and whether it could be used effectively as a monitoring tool for vegetation conditions in a mountain summit environment. Previous vegetation change analysis studies between 2001 and 2007 at the summit of Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, suggested that the site and visitor management strategies employed were beneficial in enhancing vegetation increase. By analyzing two RapidEye data (high spatial resolution remote sensing data from Planet) collected in 2010 and 2018, we compared the vegetation conditions at the summit (experimental site) with a nearby site with little or no visitor use (control site). Additionally, we examined vegetation cover changes between 2001-2007 (the first time frame) and 2010-2018 (the second time frame). Similar to the results observed in the first time frame, the experimental and control sites exhibited more vegetation increase than vegetation decrease in the second time frame. The amount of vegetation increase was 1,425m2 at the experimental site and 400m2 at the control site. The amount of vegetation decrease was 150m2 at the experimental site and 75m2 at the control site. Measurable vegetation cover changes based on the remote sensing analysis could provide baseline data for monitoring further changes over an extended period of time. The advantages of using remote sensing in detecting vegetation conditions at a mountain summit environment are also discussed, along with management and research implications.

Authors: Jacob Vitale, Alison Adams, Soren Donisvitch, Jerome Lee, Benjamin Porter, Elissa Schuett, Matthias Sirch, Nancy Voorhis, and Alexana Wolf

Authors: Frederick Pond, Vermont Forestland Owner

In 2023, a small forest landowner in central Vermont enrolled 140 acres in the Family Forest Carbon Program[FFCP], engaging his local forestland in combating global warming.

FFCP is a collaboration of The Nature Conservancy and American Forest Foundation, developed to offer small landowners the opportunity to engage their asset in carbon sequestration locally.

This poster presents the experience of a small forest owner's process in entering a twenty year contract to manage a small woodlot under the direction of FFCP while enrolled with the state UVA program, also known as Current Use.

Challenges to the process, advantages/downsides, future perspectives are explored in this poster, from a citizen landowner experience.

This parcel is representative of hill forests that hosted early European settlers, later abandoned farm use, and later harvested for maximum ROI prior to enrollment for long-term forestry improvement guided by consulting foresters in coordination with Vermont's Current Use Program.

Authors: Katherine Hale, University of Vermont
Arne Bomblies, University of Vermont
Beverley Wemple, University of Vermont
Jamie Shanley, US Geological Survey

This Summit-to-Shore (S2S) observatory network aims to monitor snowpack characteristics and meteorological variables at a high spatial and temporal resolution across an elevational transect in the Vermont. Traditional meteorological measurements combined with detailed snowpack measurements will provide high resolution observational data as forcings and validation for computational snowpack models. In addition to these data, remotely sensed snow depth collected via UAV and LiDAR will provide further insight to characterize snowpack evolution in response to varying forest cover, topography, and meteorologic drivers. This will help augment research in a low-elevation montane environment that is understudied with respect to snowpack dynamics.

Authors: Alexana Wolf, UVM

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Authors: Aaron Moore, State of Vermont

In May 2019, a 12-acre landslide occurred in Vermont's Mount Mansfield State Forest, releasing 200,000 m3 of sediment. Half of this sediment was deposited in Cotton Brook, offering a unique opportunity to monitor the effects of this destructive event on the stream's water quality and biology. Suspended solids, metals, and phosphorus values were among the highest ever recorded in Vermont surface waters for the subsequent 15 months and are just returning to background levels. Instream habitat below the landslide remains highly embedded and dominated by gravel and fine sediments. These toxic conditions resulted in a 92-97% decrease in macroinvertebrate density and a 76% decrease in sensitive taxa richness compared to reference expectations during the first year. Subsequent biomonitoring through 2023 has shown a marked improvement, though the macroinvertebrate community is still notably less diverse and has lower assessment ratings compared to nearby reference sites. Landslides are predicted to become an increasing threat with climate change due to changes in precipitation and temperature. This study highlights the potential consequences of large-scale landslides on stream water quality, as well as effects on aquatic communities and their resilience to these events.

Authors: Natasha Karniski-Keglovits, SUNY ESF Adirondack Ecological Center
Stacy McNulty, SUNY ESF Adirondack Ecological Center

In recent years, human recreation on many public lands has increased, including the Adirondack Park Forest Preserve. To assess how the park's natural and recreation resources are responding to visitor use, we partnered with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation beginning in 2019 to implement the Ecological Scorecard, a long-term monitoring project to assess how selected recreation areas may be changing over time. Identifying trends in such areas alongside visitor use allows for evidence-based management implementation, with continued monitoring of how such management action may lead to improved ecological outcomes. This process will enable a feedback loop of adaptive management. Data collection entails sampling a suite of ecological indicators that are responsive to human activity at paired sites near and 100 m from campsites, trails and other Points of Interest. Understory percent cover, species richness, vertical structural complexity of vegetation and invasive plant detection provide evidence of trampling and overuse. At fishing access sites, we survey non-native earthworms. We survey salamanders at all sites, because they have limited home ranges and therefore respond to changes on a local scale. At trailheads, we conduct tick surveys for information relevant to ecosystem and human health. Passively collected acoustic data enable inference of impacts of anthropophony on vocalization activity of mammalian and avian taxa. Additionally, stream macroinvertebrate sampling helps determine ecological health of aquatic systems. Documentation, including presence of trash and photography of set points, allows qualitative assessment of change of vegetation cover and other impacts over time. Considering evidence provided by these and other indicators holistically, we are developing an easily interpretable Ecological Scorecard to rate each site's ecological health and ensure the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan is being upheld. The Ecological Scorecard provides a science-based tool for assessing ecological impacts of recreation as a part of a larger Visitor Use Management framework, helping managers provide recreation opportunities while preserving this unique ecosystem for future generations to enjoy.

Authors: Theresa Crimmins, USA Nantional Phenology Network

Forest management issues such as invasive species and restoration are a major concern for forest and natural resource managers in the Northeastern U.S., and management is growing increasingly challenging under changing climate conditions. Successful management in forestry and other applications requires a shared understanding of the problem being addressed as well as a shared commitment to taking action. A better understanding of the social and cultural values that different agencies and organizations bring to management under dynamic conditions will shed light on improvements that could be made to both data products and the ways the products are delivered and communicated to various audiences for the widest adoption and greatest impact. We propose to engage decision makers, Tribal representatives, and natural resource managers in an effort to better understand what shapes their decisions and in co-producing data products to support on the ground management. Specifically, we plan to bring this insight to bear in an effort to develop and deliver a suite of data products relevant for invasive species management and other culturally or economically significant management issues such as native seed collection. We intend to generate a suite of Thermal Calendars for the northeast region: state-specific maps indicating the day of year that key biologically-relevant, routinely-used springtime warmth accumulation thresholds are crossed in the current year. These products will be shaped heavily by end users, following the "consult" and "participate" modes of engagement. These products would directly enable natural resource managers to track and respond to system-level climate impacts. We will additionally generate needed information on variation and change in phenologically relevant climate metrics and the final assessments and products will be made available and accessible to all.

Authors: Kerissa Fuccillo Battle, Aaron Weed
Forest management issues such as invasive species and restoration are a major concern for forest and natural resource managers in the Northeastern U.S., and management is growing increasingly challenging under changing climate conditions. Successful management in forestry and other applications requires a shared understanding of the problem being addressed as well as a shared commitment to taking action. A better understanding of the social and cultural values that different agencies and organizations bring to management under dynamic conditions will shed light on improvements that could be made to both data products and the ways the products are delivered and communicated to various audiences for the widest adoption and greatest impact. We propose to engage decision makers, Tribal representatives, and natural resource managers in an effort to better understand what shapes their decisions and in co-producing data products to support on the ground management. Specifically, we plan to bring this insight to bear in an effort to develop and deliver a suite of data products relevant for invasive species management and other culturally or economically significant management issues such as native seed collection. We intend to generate a suite of Thermal Calendars for the northeast region: state-specific maps indicating the day of year that key biologically-relevant, routinely-used springtime warmth accumulation thresholds are crossed in the current year. These products will be shaped heavily by end users, following the “consult” and “participate” modes of engagement. These products would directly enable natural resource managers to track and respond to system-level climate impacts. We will additionally generate needed information on variation and change in phenologically-relevant climate metrics and the final assessments and products will be made available and accessible to all.

Authors: Toni Lyn Morelli, USGS

Adaptive silviculture focuses on forest management practices that consider climate change. Depending on the practices, this could also mean opening new habitat for wildlife to use, especially nesting bird species that prefer slightly disturbed mixed habitat over mature forest stands. To better understand how bird communities may be affected by these latest silviculture practices, we used point count surveys to record species occupancy and abundance on Mount Jefferson in New Hampshire and the Nulhegan Basin Division of the Silvio O. Conte Refuge in Vermont. These sites have different management histories: Nulhegan practices logging and tree thinning in the wintertime, while no logging has taken place on Mount Jefferson for about a century. By studying how different silviculture practices affect bird communities, we hope to inform climate adaptation for forestry and biodiversity conservation in the northeastern U.S.