The Street Tree Diversity of Eleven Small Ohio Communities

Riley Pierce* and Gregory Dahle

Davis College Division of Forestry and Natural Resources, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506

Presentation Category: Agricultural & Environmental Sciences (Poster Presentation #58)

Student’s Major: Forest Resources Management

Biodiversity is an important factor in preventing the spread of diseases and pests, and diverse communities have improved resilience to the effects of harsh environments. One of the most harsh environments for woody plants is urban areas, where various factors can inhibit plant growth. Due to these harsh conditions, urban foresters often select tree species that can tolerate the difficult conditions. This limits the number of species that are often utilized in the urban forest, yet street tree diversity has been shown to vary across the United States. This research assesses the street tree diversity of eleven cities in Ohio. An analysis was made using municipal street tree inventories that identified the trees at the family, genus, and species level. For each of the inventories the Simpson Diversity Index, Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index, and relative abundances were compared. Additionally, the ratio of gymnosperms to angiosperms was derived. The available street tree inventories ranged from a population of 398 trees to 29,727 trees. The results indicate that the inventories included a narrow range of woody species. Furthermore, the results show, as anticipated, that the maple genus (Acer) was more abundant than any other genus. However, at the species level there are a variety of species that occur most frequently, ranging from the callery pear (Pyrus calleryana), honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos) and silver maple (Acer saccharinum).

Funding:

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: WVU's Research Apprenticeship Program (RAP) & accompanying HONR 297-level course