Massachusetts Urban Forest Diversity: Insights from an Undergraduate Service Learning Course

Background: Conventional volunteer pools can generate labor for citizen science activities, but opportunities also exist to involve and incorporate student populations into meaningful data collection exercises and service learning initiatives. This is especially relevant in urban and community forestry, where land managers are charged with maintaining inventory records of tree populations in order to inform management and policy decisions but often operate without adequate capacity to maintain high quality and updated data. Previous research has shown that trained undergraduate students have the ability to meet this need and also benefit from service learning opportunities. Methods: As part of an undergraduate capstone course in urban forestry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (the state land grant university), undergraduate student researchers worked with local land managers to collect urban tree inventory data from municipalities throughout the state. Data were aggregated to assess statewide and subregional urban tree taxonomic and size diversity, then evaluated against previously published research about statewide urban and street tree populations to signal the legitimacy of using undergraduate student data to supplement formal research. Results: Findings from this study show that the incorporation of trained undergraduate natural resource students can serve as a form of citizen science that productively contributes to urban forest management practices—namely urban tree inventory efforts. Conclusions: Students can yield useful empirical data that may inform conclusions and supplement more intensive urban tree inventory protocols at broader scales.