Yardmap

[Gloria]

Plants make the habitat...a program taking steps to futher encourage habitat gardening.

Location: Janesville, Wisconsin
Size: 1.5 acres

River Oaks - YardMap

With the help of my father, I planted roughly 60 trees over the last 5 years; all but 4 are native to Wisconsin (the other 4 were gifts). Among the native trees are eastern white pine, balsam fir, swamp white oak, jack pine, quaking aspen, river birch, sugar maple, red maple, and black spruce. I further manage for natives by planting and encouraging many desirable understory species such as American elderberry, dogwood, Mayapple, and blood root.

The thing I’ve put the most work into has been the elimination of the non-native invasive species. It has payed off! When we purchased the property five years ago, it was covered in honeysuckle, buckthorn, and garlic mustard. As I have eliminated the invasives, I am starting to see native perennials move back in. Now, I find American elderberry, wood violets, wild geraniums, milkweed, and ferns. There were virtually no native saplings coming up before, but I now see box elder, elm, black cherry, shagbark hickory, black oak, and green ash seedlings sprouting up all over!

YardMap News: New research is taking shape in YardMap, and how to avoid West Nile virus in your yard

Programs like YardMap can catalyze rapid attitude shifts through the power of social networking. This study was developed as a first step in a much larger, interdisciplinary study, called the Binghamton Urban Ecosystems Initiative, which seeks to study Binghamton, N.Y., as a comprehensive ecosystem. With Scott's groundwork in place, this research is poised to become a long-term citizen-science study.

"In order for urban areas to truly benefit and support natural communities, they must address the needs of organisms year round and their seasonal changes in habitat preference," says Scott. While there is no silver bullet, YardMappers can help birds by promoting plant diversity in cities, especially that of trees and shrubs. In a nutshell, don't just plant a single tree; plant a variety of species. In particular, increasing shrub cover can support more diverse bird communities all year long, not just the "urban exploiters" commonly found in cities.

[Gloria]

About Us - YardMap

The YardMap is an idea that was developed at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and funded in 2009 by the National Science Foundation to help fulfill the mission of the Citizen Science Program. PI Janis Dickinson is Faculty Director of Citizen Science at the Cornell Lab; collaborating researchers and co-PIs include Cornell faculty in a range of departments and colleges: Marianne Krasny (Natural Resources), Nancy Trautmann (The Cornell Lab), Nancy Wells (Human Ecology), & Connie Yuan (Communications and Computer Science).
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0917487. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation

The Science of YardMap
What kinds of questions are we seeking to answer with your help?
1.What practices improve the wildlife value of residential landscapes?
2.Which of these practices have the greatest impact?
3.Over how large an area do we have to implement these practices to really make a difference?
4.What impact do urban and suburban wildlife corridors and stopover habitats have on birds?
5.Which measures (bird counts? nesting success?) show the greatest impacts of our practices?

[dapjwy]

Gloria, thank you for sharing. I was getting excited just by the excerpt *before* I noticed it is focused on Binghamton, NY--not all that far from me!

Cool.

I hope to explore this more when I have more time.