From Fires to Phenology: Meet Our New SCA Fellow!

One year ago, I left the land of cheese, beer, and badgers in search of new experiences and meaningful work.

Parks Conservancy’s new SCA Green Cities Fellow Ryan, whose last stint was cuddling sea turtles in Florida.

Ryan leading fearless volunteers into Jurassic Valley in South Side Park.

Thanks to the Student Conservation Association and AmeriCorps, I’ve lived, worked, and played in four different states. My most recent stint has landed me in the Steel City. After spending months in New York and Florida, Pittsburgh has the comforting feeling that I remember from Midwestern cities closer to home. The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy has welcomed me with open arms, and I’m already knee deep in a series of projects to be completed by Fall.

Invasive Japanese barberry.

My primary project involves invasive species and their phenology. Phenology is the study of the significant stages in life cycles of plants and animals, e.g. the times of the year when garlic mustard leafs, flowers, seeds, and dies.  My goal with the Parks Conservancy is to research when and where invasive plants grow in the parks to aid in strategic restoration of those areas.

Already I’ve spent a significant amount of time hiking and crawling around Pittsburgh’s parks documenting the activity of plants. It wasn’t surprising to find that weeks of hot weather and reliable spring rainfall triggered quick, early growth for many plant species, including invasive plants. Garlic mustard was ready to begin seeding in early May. Poison hemlock started flowering a few weeks later. Usually, those plants’ life stages occur one month later than we’re seeing, but seasonal and inter-annual climate patterns have drastic effects on plant phenology. Cool and extremely wet springs can cause delayed growth. Warm temperatures and moderate precipitation — which Pittsburgh experienced this year — caused early growth.

The effects of climate change can already be seen and will continue to influence the timing of plant and animal life cycles.

Invasive Jetbead.

The general pattern of plant phenology will keep leaning towards earlier growth as global average temperatures rise. My research will be used by the Park Management and Maintenance team at the Parks Conservancy as they work to control invasive plants. Invasives have the potential to drastically change the parks as they out-compete local plants. I’ll be making an interactive map showcasing when, where, and which species need to be managed, giving staff the tools to better fight invasives.

Using similar strategies, I will be looking at species diversity in the parks and discovering methods to prioritize and improve restoration sites. I will be keeping an eye out for the Asian Longhorned Beetle and predicting the potential impact it could have on our park trees. I will also be the volunteer crew leader for invasive sweeps at Highland Park on the second Thursday of each month (you can register for these here).

The next time you’re out in the parks, be sure to keep an eye out. There’s a tall, blond Wisconsinite roaming a park near you!

Ryan Klausch is from Wisconsin, but his name is not Yon Yonson. He’s serving as an SCA Green Cities Sustainability Corps Fellow through the rest of this year.

Only you can prevent forest fires! (Unless Ryan is starting them as part of a controlled burn team with SCA in Florida.)

Learn how to remove invasive plants like the ones Ryan is studying at the upcoming Urban EcoSteward training on June 9th. It’s free and open to the public. Register here!

High School Urban EcoStewards – Engaging youth in urban environmental stewardship

Westinghouse student using lopper to cut away invasive species

“And how mad were your parents when you decided not to go to Law School?” joked Phil Thompson, Coordinator of the Lighthouse Project, as we walked back to the truck after lunch. “It didn’t matter, I found something I love,” I smiled back at him. It’s a surprisingly warm day at the end of November; we are out with a group of students from The Academy at Westinghouse for our High School Urban EcoStewards program. The students have adopted a quarter acre plot of land in Frick Park, and have come out this year once before and learned how to properly identify and remove invasive species and plant native trees at their site. Today’s session is a park walk; we spent time doing stewardship removing invasive vines within their site before setting out on a long hike through Frick Park to learn about managing ecosystem health within our city parks. One of our field ecologists has also joined us to talk about restoration practices in the park and to introduce the students to some different jobs in the Environmental Science field.

Sawing invasive vines

I began working in Environmental Education when I was a summer camp counselor at the Frick Environmental Center in 2010. I was majoring in Politics and Philosophy at Pitt, all set to continue on to Law School when I realized I didn’t have a job lined up for the summer.  I heard about Frick Environmental Center from one of my friends in the Geology department. I grew up outside with my brothers LARPing in Slippery Rock’s local woodlands, hiking all over McConnell’s Mills, and swimming in Moraine State Park. I needed a summer job, and they had an opening where I could work outside.  I went into it thinking it would be a fun thing to do for the summer, but it actually changed the course of my career. I got paid to teach lessons about the natural world and enjoy the outdoors with children. Could it get any better?

Nature journaling and photography

It did. Here I am two years and some odd months later and the kids teach me more than I could ever hope to teach them. If there’s one thing I consistently take away from my job as an informal educator it’s inspiration, particularly with this group. Today we’re working with students who are part of the YMCA Lighthouse Project at Westinghouse. A few of them have done the High School Urban Eco Stewards program before, for some it’s their first time. This forces us to be flexible, sometimes letting the returning students take the lead, sometimes going into more depth about concepts they’re already aware of.  This is one of my favorite aspects of my job:  every day is different.  While this is the third High School Urban Eco Stewards park walk of the week, it’s the first walk in Frick Park and because of the Lighthouse’s media focus; there are new components we haven’t covered with previous schools.

Capturing a different perspective for nature photography

Every session of High School Urban Eco Stewards incorporates a journaling component for students to practice making good scientific observations. Sometimes we sketch or we’ll write poems, other times we’ll free write for a determined period of time. But today is different. The Lighthouse has a photography module the students can choose to participate in, and while only a few of the students here today are also in the photography module, we jumped at the chance to incorporate photography into our science lessons. We were able to obtain a digital camera for each of the students to use. After our Education Program Coordinator, Taiji, briefly introduces some strategies to compose a good shot, with the Lighthouse coordinator adding a few thoughts, each student searches for one thing they find beautiful and one thing they find intriguing. The trick is that they get just one shot each. They must take their time utilizing their observation skills we’ve been developing to locate that one beautiful thing or that one intriguing visual. After they’ve decided what they want to capture, they must move around, change their perspective, change the lighting patterns, until they find that perfect shot.

Then they write about it in their journals. I prompt them to justify their decisions. I hear myself tenaciously asking why? I try to play it cool and be discerning about their choices when photographing but inside I am just thrilled. At 15 or 16 years, old these students are incredibly inspiring. Learning about their lives and aspirations is refreshing; these students are dedicated and hardworking. To be able to share my love of the outdoors with them and possibly cultivate that same feeling within them is a unique opportunity I am grateful for every day. They stay after school at the Lighthouse until 7:00pm Monday-Thursday (mind you their school day starts around 7:00am), they argue about who is going to be valedictorian, and at times they really challenge me, asking, “Why are we out here doing this when there are people starving?”

The Academy of Westinghouse High School Urban EcoStewards and our Education Team

As I’m compiling all of their photos, from the day I can’t help but smile and think about what Phil had asked me about law school. I eagerly abandoned a potential life of working long hours stuck behind a computer, working my way up to someday maybe occupying that corner office with the view. At best, I’d sit at my desk captivated by the magic occurring on the other side of my window, only to look glumly back at all of the paperwork I had to do. As an informal environmental educator, I spend days at a time in “the field,” teaching students about ecology, watersheds, and biodiversity while facilitating a deep and informed appreciation for and relationship with the natural world. “No,” I smirk “my parents aren’t mad at all.”

Below are a few of the breathtaking photos the Westinghouse students took during the day. The students meticulously set-up each shot and there are no filters applied to these photos. It’s so powerful to see nature through someone else’s eyes.

Dayvon’s Site Photo

Kielle’s Site Photo #1

Kielle’s Site Photo #2

Ramon’s Site Photo

Shawn’s Site Photo

Bailey Warren is the new Education Program Assistant at the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy through a 10-month apprenticeship with Public Allies Pittsburgh AmeriCorps program. Visit our website to learn more about our High School Urban EcoSteward program and how you can get involved.

Top 15 Trees in the Parks – Part 1

We’d like to introduce you to our trees.

In 2010, the City of Pittsburgh completed a Natural Areas Study of Frick, Highland, Riverview, and Schenley Parks.  The study included a tree inventory that tallied about 373,000 trees on 900 acres of forested park land.  That’s a whole lotta shade–and habitat, and air cooling, and soil stabilization, and many other good things. 

But we were interested in how the trees broke down by the numbers.  We took a look at the tree inventory and decided to introduce you to the top 15 species (by density) that you’ll find in the parks.  (We’re leaving out the sixth item on the list–which was just a catch-all line for dead trees that came in at around 23,000.  We’re sure those trees are making lots of birds and squirrels happy, but we don’t have much else to say about them!) 

Along with a general introduction to each tree, I asked our resident Tree Guy, Phil Gruszka, to pass on a few words about each species.  We’ll bring these to you a few at a time over the next week or so.  Enjoy!

#1: Norway Maple (Acer platanoides)

Norway maple leaves

The runaway winner in the Pittsburgh parks tree sweepstakes is unfortunately the invasive Norway maple, covering almost 18% of the regional parks’ wooded areas.  It achieves dominance over native plants through its abundant production of seedlings, the deep shade produced by its canopy, and the release of phytotoxic chemicals that inhibit the growth of other plants.  By contributing to the lack of understory plants, Norway maples also help cause erosion and compacted soil.  In our restoration work with the City, we’ve tried to turn that on its head by using cut or fallen Norway maples to stabilize hillsides. 

Norway maple can be distinguished from native maples by the white, milky sap in its leaves and twigs (the natives have clear sap).  It’s also one of the last trees to lose its color in the fall, remaining green into November and then turning bright yellow.

After most other trees have lost their leaves in the fall, the Norway maple remains yellow.

To indicate how invasive Norway maple is, Phil says it’s a good rule of thumb that an ideal, balanced forest would contain no more than 10% of any one genus.  So all the maples put together should total less than 10%.  Instead, this one species alone makes up 18%.  And, in fact, the Norway maple accounts for more than half the trees in Highland Park, which means that replacing this species with more appropriate trees will be a long-term effort.

Phil Says: For the past 13 years, the City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Public Works and the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy have been working towards removing this non-native, environmentally invasive tree from the park woodlands.  However, with the advent of EAB and oak wilt disease and other destructive insects and diseases that are making their way to Pittsburgh, we need to be careful about how we approach the Norway maple.  Most recently, when oak wilt struck a stand of native red oaks in Highland Park, the understory was made up of Norway maple.  There, we ended up leaving the Norway maple tree because it was better to have that tree than no tree at all, because the steep slope needed to have trees on it to prevent soil from running off.  The Norway maples will remain until native trees have replenished that site, at which point they will be removed.

#2: White Ash (Fraxinus americana)
Today, the most prevalent native species in the parks is white ash, at about 50,000 trees.  It is most prominent in Schenley Park, where it makes up 26% of the forest.  Its impending, almost total loss to the emerald ash borer beetle will dramatically change the composition of the canopy, especially in Schenley Park. 

Before the introduction of EAB, white ash was an excellent tree to plant in the parks because of its size, ease of transplantation, and attractiveness as wildlife habitat.  It grows relatively rapidly and has fall colors ranging from yellow to orange to maroon.

Phil Says: In sections of park woodlands where we have removed Norway maple, the very first native species to naturally repopulate those sites have been white and green ash.  Genetically, this is a strong plant with so many great qualities. It’s truly unfortunate that such a great native tree species is being destroyed because of emerald ash borer.

Stay tuned as we continue to reveal more about our parks’ most prominent trees!

[Presentation]: Emerald Ash Borer / Native Wildflowers

Pennsylvania’s resident emerald ash borer expert, David Schmit, is a Forest Health Specialist with the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.  He can spot an EAB-infested ash tree from a mile away thanks to his familiarity with how their bark looks after woodpeckers have discovered the larvae.  In today’s presentation from “Preserving Pittsburgh’s Trees: Action and Recovery,” he shows you all the life stages of emerald ash borer and explains why it’s a much bigger threat than, say, the forest tent caterpillars that periodically defoliate our trees.

He also picks up on a theme from Dr. Carson’s presentation yesterday about deer, and that’s the idea that “deer are the deciders” when it comes to what wildflowers you’re going to see in the parks.  He paints a picture of what the forest would look like if we could isolate an area from deer and begin reintroducing the plants that grew there before their populations were decimated by the overabundance of deer. 

Given our distaste here at the Parks Conservancy for garlic mustard, it’s interesting to think of this plant in terms of deer.  Basically, if the deer liked to eat it, it wouldn’t be invasive–in fact, you’d hardly ever see it.  The main key to being invasive is having no natural predators in a particular location.  It makes sense that native deer love to eat native plants–it’s just unfortunate that the deer population has climbed so high that they’re the ONLY ones who get to enjoy those plants.

Without further ado, check out some of these lovely and little-seen wildflowers (as well as the lifespan of the emerald ash borer) below, or download the slides here.

Tree Time Part 3: Ask the Experts

During our gathering of tree experts in November, we asked some of our visitors to give us their impressions of Pittsburgh’s parks and the threats that face our trees.  Check out some of their thoughts and suggestions in the video below.