Resilience

 

This spring and summer I had the pleasure and great good fortune to work with Chris Arrotti, a recent UConn graduate. As a summer intern with the UConn program Climate Corps, he helped me scientifically and logically sort out a lot of options and directions for our planning for the Hoffman Preserve. He has created a super management proposal that will be reviewed by our stewardship team and added to the Hoffman Management Plan going forward. It will ultimately be available on our website. Enjoy his report. With young adults like Chris, succeeding even during this time of upheaval and change, standing ready to confront the future and whatever challenges it holds, I have hope.

Beth 

 

Hi! My name is Chris Arrotti, and I’m a recent graduate from the University of Connecticut with a bachelor’s degree in biology. When exposed to the different facets within biology, I learned I had an affinity for ecology and conservation, the branch of biology which studies organisms' relationship to one another, their physical surroundings, and preserving these relationships. I think my passion for the subject accrued given the current circumstances on Earth: humans have altered the planet in such substantial ways to the point where there is an environmental crisis. I feel very lucky to be passionate about something that will be arguably one of the most important frontiers in my lifetime. In the past few months, I’ve learned about the difference between school work and employment, both the challenges and freedoms that come with each, and the necessity for resilience in nature and life.

 

When I had started my project on Avalonia’s Hoffman Preserve, I was a senior during the Spring 2020 semester. Numerous courses painted a bleak picture of the realities of conservation: limited funding, limited resources, and most importantly limited time. We were taught to ponder questions of triage, choosing between species x or species y and how you go about justifying such an answer. Or what makes one environment more of a priority than the next for conservation efforts: productivity, number of species, uniqueness of habitat. There isn’t exactly a clear-cut answer to many of these predicaments, nor is there a very storied history of conservation which can tell us which the best way is to go about addressing these problems. One philosophy that was consistently suggested was adaptive management. Adaptive management is essentially a set of guidelines one uses to make management decisions when faced with uncertainty. This is a process general enough to be repeated when new conflicts arise and specific enough to tailor it to certain circumstances.

 

A patch cut that was bare is now regenerating, one step at a time.

Chestnuts have succumbed to blight for over a century, yet regrow from their bases.

A young hemlock grows in the shelter of an old birch tree.

Assisted Migration

During January, I had taken a walk through Hoffman Preserve’s patch cuts. The patch cuts, as a good portion of the preserve in general, were barren: compact dark soil, no vegetation, and silhouettes of sickly grey trees outlining the outskirts. I was told many of the trees were diseased and unhealthy conditions led to these acre-sized vacancies. I started to feel as if I likely wouldn’t have an impact here. I had limited knowledge of forest ecology, and the landscape did not look able-bodied enough to harbor life. However, in the lack of growth I saw an opportunity for something that was unprecedented at Hoffman: assisted migration. Assisted migration is the idea of moving southern native species into northern areas to make the environment more resilient to projected changes in climate. With the vacant areas of the preserve I thought it would be an ideal place to attempt to translocate some southern species.

As I continued to work on the project, I learned about the issues that led Hoffman to where it is now and what the managers planned to do going forward. Hoffman Evergreen Preserve, as the name suggests, was a preserve for evergreen trees. However, early management practices led to an overcrowding of planted evergreens. Ultimately, this created areas of densely populated, unhealthy trees that shaded out any light underneath, disallowing the establishment of any understory. The intense monoculture limited biodiversity and was a mediocre habitat for animals that used it. For that reason, patch cuts were made; trees would be logged and harvested throughout the park. However, removing the trees and transporting them out of the preserve also created large skid trails.

 

Resilience will have a chance when the sun reaches the forest floor.

Lush new growth on a hemlock in response to more light.

Hope for a warmer future. A southern species of pine.

Pandemic

Come late March, a pandemic had swept across the world and I was out of school. Among the stresses a pandemic brings alone, the abstractness of online classes was a difficult transition, and I found my management plan was harder to write. I think everybody can attest to the grueling mental grind quarantine put us through worrying if you were sick, the impatience of wanting normalcy, and never having experienced a rapid change such as this one.

But I write this now in August, and it feels like March was a decade ago. And it looks like it, too. Yes, people are still wearing masks, but there’s this palpable plasticity in society where I feel as though normalcy is within reach. For better or worse, I’ve adapted to the house-workplace and feel as though if I were to be under these circumstances again, I’d be better prepared. Moreover, Hoffman’s plants have bounced back with a vibrancy I didn’t think was possible. Three of the five patches are covered in a lush-green. Plants have managed to thrive in one of the driest and hottest summers in Connecticut's history without the help of people. I’ve even gone on to see some of the southern native species I recommended get planted on the site. Sometimes, the future seems unimaginably bleak. But it’s important to recognize the necessity and importance of resilience and your ability to adapt in the face of change.         

A stump sprouting maple is also resilience.

 

The next generation steward. Photograph by J. Alexander.

Photographs by Beth Sullivan, unless otherwise indicated.

The Greening of Hoffman Preserve

By Beth Sullivan

It was a long winter, but we planned and had hopes for spring. Somehow, (we know how) our best plans for being organized and meeting and having groups together to get work done in the spring, never materialized. Some of us hiked; many of us researched; all of us thought a lot about what would be our next steps for the Hoffman Preserve.

We found some interesting research about planning our forests for the warming future. Where we live now could become much more like the climate of Maryland in another generation or two. In the mid 1900’s the preserve was planted with conifers: hemlock, pine, and larch, to re-create a northern forest habitat. We have the opportunity now, to think about a more southern forest, and if we choose to help mother nature, we may direct our thoughts to trees and plants that will thrive in the coming warmth.

With more sun this hemlock has healthy new growth.

A young white pine seedling will have no competition to grow tall.

New sights to see

Since the weather has warmed up, several of us have taken the opportunity to hike out and around to really explore what is happening since the project was completed last year. One thing we noticed was that everyone else was out exploring too. The preserve is getting a lot of visitors, and the good thing is that people are beginning to get a little idea of what we were aiming for. The new signs helped, too.

The first thing we notice is how much more light there is. Even with the leaves emerged, there are big bright sunny patches and places where the sun streams in at angles, creating some great atmosphere. You can also see the tops of the trees. No longer do you walk among trunks, but now you can admire the tallest of trees.

The birds also enjoy those open patches of light. Even the true forest dwelling birds like to come out to the edges, to the light, because that’s where they can find insects. The sunny patch cuts are now swarming with all sorts of flying insects, including different butterflies and dragon flies. Those aerial insectivores, like flycatchers and swallows have found themselves better hunting grounds. For the first time we have had bluebirds on the preserve. They nest in cavities. Over the past many years, with many trees dead or dying, woodpeckers have created numerous inviting spaces for those birds to claim. Chickadees, titmice, and nuthatches use holes as well, and their numbers have increased.

While there is still a lot of messy-looking wood on the ground, from branches and tree trunks that are still breaking and falling, that coarse woody debris is essential for so many reasons. It creates numerous nooks and crannies for all sorts of wildlife. We also have begun to create brush piles to tidy up a bit, but also to provide habitat. From medium-sized mammals like opossums , to chipmunks and mice, there are plenty of spaces to hide. Birds like wrens and sparrows will find shelter among the tangles of branches and will find plenty of insect food. As the wood decays, there are all sorts of insects, especially beetles, and other invertebrates, that come to feast on the rotting wood. Amphibians, particularly salamanders, rely on the damp dark areas under wood to find food and shelter. All the way down to the smallest organisms-bacteria and fungi-the soil under the old wood is alive.

There were many places in Hoffman, before the project, where the forest floor was barren. There was no understory and no diversity to support so much life.

Small mammals will have more places to hide in brush piles. Photograph by Rick Newton.

A garter snake has more sunny patches to enjoy.

Flycatchers are more abundant as they can find insects in the sunny openings.

New life to see

New life is most apparent in areas where the forest had been somewhat diverse before. A forest with a mix of tree species and shrubs in the understory will have a greater seed bank, which is years of seeds lying dormant in the soil, waiting for an opportune time to sprout. That time is now. A small lowbush blueberry that struggled in the shade has now sent out runners and spread its clones and offshoots in all directions, creating greater patches of green. These bushes already flowered and are developing berries for maybe the first time in decades. These berries will be available for many different birds and mammals later in the summer and fall. We lost many oak trees to drought and gypsy moth devastation in the last several years. In the open areas there are many, many seedlings sprouting from acorns produced before the trees died. Maybe when they are old enough, there will be a control for gypsy moths . We have to hope they can adapt to a changing climate.

Many of the trees that were cut to harvest are also re-sprouting from their stumps. This is most noticeable in the red maples where the young leaves crown the stump. Over time the strongest will survive and a multi-trunked tree will thrive.

We may have to help Mother Nature along in places where the very dense shade of the hemlock groves had no diversity and no seed bank. But that is the fun of watching and waiting. There is always something new to see there. We invite you all to enjoy the changes, take pictures, send us your observations, and watch the rebirth of the Hoffman Preserve.

It's easier now to see the tops of the trees.

This hillside is now becoming a patchwork of green, mostly young berry bushes and cherry tree seedlings.

This red maple has put up numerous stems and leaves already.

Photographs by Beth Sullivan, unless otherwise indicated.