TITLE:
Investigating Land-Use Change on Street Tree Ecosystems
AUTHORS:
Thomas Turnbull, Sharon Jean-Philippe, Raymond Albright, David Buckley, Sean Schaeffer, P. Eric Wiseman
KEYWORDS:
Street Trees, Soil Microbial Carbon, Soil Microbial Nitrogen, Tree Condition, Urban Forestry, Urban Soils
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Forestry,
Vol.4 No.5,
October
17,
2014
ABSTRACT: In the
early 1940’s, during the early stages of the Manhattan Project (WWII), of rural
communities in Anderson County, Tennessee was rapidly converted into laboratory
facilities and the city of Oak Ridge. The environment that became Oak Ridge experienced
not only pollutants from the laboratory activities, but also alterations from
the land-use changefrom rural to urban areas. Therefore, a study was conducted to
determine the impacts of land-use change from rural to urban area on 1) street
tree diversity and performance; and 2) the biological, chemical and physical
properties, and nutrient dynamics of street tree ecosystem soils. There were a
total of 607 street trees, composed of 37 different species, on the five main
roadways in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The street tree inventory revealed that the
street tree ecosystems had a high relative abundance of Acer rubrum (21.91%) and Pyrus
calleryana (19.93%). Chemical, rather than physical, soil and site
properties in street tree ecosystems had the greatest impact on street tree
performance. Soils differed street by street in their biological, chemical, and
physical properties but were not influenced by traffic rates. There were also
differences in soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC) during the winter on streets
based on their diversity of trees; however, the most diverse street was among
the lowest in soil microbial biomass. Seasonally, the winter proved to have not
only greater amounts of soil microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen (MBN), but
significantly less extractable organic carbon (EOC) and nitrogen (EON) and
total labile carbon (TLC) than that in the spring. Overall, this study provided
insights into the post urbanization impacts on the street trees, soils, sites,
and nutrient dynamics within street tree ecosystems of Oak Ridge.