Using Field Experiences to Study the Land-Use Legacy

Abstract

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The current rapid decline of Earth's biodiversity represents an enormous crisis for humanity. Biodiversity contributes to the stability, resilience, and functioning of natural ecosystems (Chapin III et al., 2000; Hooper et al., 2005). It has been well established that natural ecosystems provide essential and economically beneficial services to humans (Pimentel et ah, 1997; Balmford et al., 2002) and that their alteration can produce wide-ranging, negative effects on these services (Chapin III et al., 2000). Thus, understanding how human activities alter biodiversity is one of the most pressing problems facing society today. Among the factors producing declines in biodiversity, changes in land use may have the greatest effect in the near term (Sala et al., 2000). It is well known that history produces strong, lingering effects on biodiversity (Harding et al., 1998; Dupouey et al., 2002; Foster et ah, 2003; Vellend, 2004; Simmons et ah, 2008). This phenomenon has become known as the land-use legacy. Although it is commonly assumed that natural ecosystems can recover from the damage wrought by human activity, research has shown that legacies can remain for centuries or longer (Foster et al., 2003) and can be better predictors of biodiversity than contemporary sources of disturbance (Harding et al., 1998). Therefore, studies of legacies are critically important for understanding how practices alter biodiversity over temporal scales. Information gleaned from such studies could be used to direct future policies pertaining to land use and more accurately predict how current changes in land use will affect biodiversity in the future. Because of its relevance to contemporary ecology and ubiquity across the landscape, legacy effects provide an excellent model system for engaging students in the study of their local environment. For the past five years we have involved 10th grade biology students at New Philadelphia High School, New Philadelphia, Ohio, in field experiences that quantify legacy effects on forest biodiversity. We call these field experiences, rather than field trips, to reflect their emphasis on having students directly involved in the intimate study of nature. The over-arching goals of these experiences are to provide opportunities for students to connect with their local environment, to observe forest ecosystems from a new perspective, to study ecology in its natural context, and to apply the scientific method while investigating an authentic question. We feel that this project provides a general model that could be applied by other teachers to involve their students in the study of local ecosystems. * The Students & Their Environment New Philadelphia High School is a %mall-town public school with a student population of approximately 1,000 students in grades 9 through 12. The high school is located in the city of New Philadelphia, Tuscarawas County, Ohio. Tuscarawas County has a long history of coal mining extending back to at least the early 1800s. Strip mining (i.e., the removal of soils and strata overlying a coal seam) began in Ohio in 1914 (Riley, 1960) and continues to be the dominant method of coal mining in Ohio today (EIA, 2007). Although Ohio's earliest reclamation laws extend back to 1948, there was a general lack of enforcement of these laws prior to the early 1970s (Montrie, 2003). As a result, Tuscarawas County contains approximately 30,000 acres of forests that have regenerated atop un-reclaimed strip mines (Waters & Roth, 1986). Because strip mining has had such a large effect on the landscape surrounding New Philadelphia, we felt that it would be interesting and engaging for our students to examine these forests for legacy effects. * Materials & Methods Materials (per group per day} * two 1-gallon Ziploc[R] freezer bags * approximately 40 sandwich or snack-sized Ziploc[R] bags * four marker flags (purchased from a local hardware store) * one 1-meter length of rope * one permanent Magic Marker The materials needed for surveying biodiversity are low cost and can be purchased from local businesses. …