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REWILDING, WILDLIFE, NEWTS FROM THE FIELD

Newts from the Field: Ecology Program Blooms

Newts from the Field is a seasonal installment bringing you the wonders of nature from out in the wilderness. In this installment, Wildlands Ecology Fellow Eric Bailey writes about the many research projects of NEWT’s budding ecology program.

Forever-wild (or wilderness) conservation, has been around for more than a century. Perhaps the best example in the Northeast is the Adirondack Park in northern New York, which was permanently protected from resource extraction and management in 1892. In the intervening century, the success and rebound of the forests and wildlife there has been astounding. Can this example be copied and continued throughout the Northeast? And what implications would this have for land, water, and wildlife?

We know the answer to the first question: yes. Northeast Wilderness Trust and partner organizations are making strides to expand wildlands across the region—enacting a strategy led by private-sector non-profits that complements public, governmental wilderness areas.

Shelby Perry takes notes about the features of a rewilding plot at Woodbury Mountain Wilderness Preserve.

The second question is far more complex to answer. We know that forever-wild conservation provides myriad benefits to people and other-than-human beings alike, from habitat to clean water to carbon sequestration to spiritual renewal to biodiversity protection. Yet, wildlands and forever-wild conservation remain severely under-researched, especially in the Northeast. And we know that Nature has a lot to teach us, if only we look and listen with humility and respect. Asking the question of exactly how wilderness conservation affects the living communities on a rewilding landscape presents an incredible opportunity for unprecedented quantitative scientific research. Thus, in 2021, Northeast Wilderness Trust’s Wildlands Ecology program was born to research wilderness’ role in this region. The program is sowing the seeds of multiple research projects, with as little impact as possible on the ecosystems being studied.

Long-term Forest Plots

Question: How do passively rewilding forests change over time? And how do those changes compare to more actively managed forests?

To understand how the structure, species composition, and biomass accumulation of a passively rewilding forest changes as the forest grows older, the Wildlands Ecology Program has set the stage for long-term studies using minimal-impact plots on Northeast Wilderness Trust Preserves. In 2022, the team set up nineteen forest plots scattered across Woodbury Mountain Wilderness Preserve in Vermont, which will be resampled every 5 years following the same protocol. The team collected data on tree diameters, downed woody debris, invasive species, herbaceous cover, animal track and sign, slope, water features, canopy cover, and more. In 2023, new research plots will be established at Grafton Forest Wilderness Preserve in Maine. The goal is to have these plots at one Preserve in each state of Northeast Wilderness Trust’s service area.

These research plots are modeled after the Wildlands & Woodlands Stewardship Science long-term forest monitoring methodologies from Highstead Foundation and Harvard Forest. The Wildlands Ecology team aims to understand the underpinning changes in an ecosystem as forests rewild, and to compare those results to similar plots on comparable actively managed forestlands.

Eric Bailey measures the circumference of a white ash tree in a rewilding plot at Woodbury Mountain Wilderness Preserve.

Wildlife Camera Study

Question: How do animals use coarse woody debris (dead wood on the forest floor) for food and shelter? Is there a difference between how animals use small-diameter woody debris (e.g., sticks and twigs) versus large-diameter woody debris (e.g., logs, stumps, large branches)?

Camera pairs will be established at several NEWT Preserves, starting in Vermont, following a methodology developed by NEWT and reviewed by academic partners. Video data will be collected every four weeks (28 days) for 6 months while the ground is free of snow. Each site will have a camera capturing wildlife activity on large diameter CWD and another for small diameter CWD. This practice will reduce confounding variables. The study aims to fill a critical knowledge gap in the research of old forest structure, and its influence on wildlife foraging and denning behavior.

Shelby Perry sets up a wildlife camera at Woodbury Mountain Wilderness Preserve in Vermont.

Camera pairs will be established at several NEWT Preserves, starting in Vermont, following a methodology developed by NEWT and reviewed by academic partners. Video data will be collected every four weeks (28 days) for 6 months while the ground is free of snow. Each site will have a camera capturing wildlife activity on large diameter CWD and another for small diameter CWD. This practice will reduce confounding variables. The study aims to fill a critical knowledge gap in the research of old forest structure, and its influence on wildlife foraging and denning behavior.

A flying squirrel explores a log at Woodbury Mountain Wilderness Preserve in Vermont.

Bioacoustic Soundscapes

Question: What sounds are present on Northeast Wilderness Trust Preserves? How do those sounds change over time as the land passively rewilds?

Baseline soundscape recording is another exciting project the ecology team is working on. Using high-sensitivity microphones, the team will capture the sounds of the wild places NEWT protects. Collecting baseline soundscapes involves recording a biotic community’s sounds, and then transferring the audio into a graph depicting the different wavelengths of sound from the landscape. These sounds help us identify the diversity of species and sheer abundance of life in a given place. In addition to their quantitative utility, they are beautiful orchestral pieces capturing the calls and croaks, the songs and screeches, the hoots and howls that compose the auditory identity of a natural community.

A winter wren sings loudly. Photo by Larry Master, www.masterimages.org

Once many years of soundscapes have been gathered, they can be compared to one another to see how a landscape’s sounds change over time as the forest passively rewilds. They could also be compared to soundscapes taken within the same kind of ecosystem, but one that is actively managed. This research has been used around the world to characterize the changes occurring in Nature due to human resource extraction and management. For example, soundscape research by Bernie Krause and his colleagues at the International Society of Ecoacoustics have documented the decline of bird species diversity following logging. By capturing the sounds of different NEWT preserves around the region, the Wildlands Ecology team will be able to look at how the sounds of these areas are changing over time.

Learning from Nature benefits us all

Northeast Wilderness Trust is excited to embark on these studies to better understand the places you help us protect. Not only do we need to conduct research to fully understand how wilderness functions and the benefits it provides, but we also need to continue to protect wild lands that serve as an otherwise-missing comparison to actively managed lands that constitute the vast majority of our region. The lessons we learn about how Nature operates all on her own can inform better forestry practices in actively managed forests. This information can support the expansion of exemplary forest management across the Northeast. And, if we didn’t already have enough reasons to protect more wildlands in the Northeast, here is yet another to add to the long list. Over time, the Wildlands Ecology program’s research may well grow that list to be longer and longer.