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In the coming decades, promoting the production of ecosystem service provisioning will become increasingly important in the U.S. Northeast, which is expected to experience a number of impacts as a result of climate change, including rising temperatures, changes in precipitation and seasonality, and sea-level rise, among others (U.S. Global Change Research Program 2020). Incentives have been shown to motivate the adoption of sustainable production practices that provision ecosystem services across different types of working landscapes. Using data from a recent landscape assessment in the Northeast, this paper finds an incredible breadth of programs available to producers across a variety of working landscapes (e.g., agricultural lands and working forests) and for different production practices. These data also point to critical gaps in current programming and also highlight important opportunities for programmatic synergy and more holistic program design going forward. This paper concludes by discussing the results in the context of four main themes of particular relevance to the U.S. Northeast which include (1) working landbase and infrastructure, (2) livelihood provisioning, (3) scale, and (4) resilience.

Opportunities for innovation in urban expansion research abound given the emergence of longitudinal and spatially explicit data. Scholars now use a broad array of data when analyzing expansion, yet the conceptual approach remains limited. Toward this end, this work extends conceptualization of expansion beyond the relatively simple economic approach that emphasizes population growth and income. Instead, insights from social–ecological theory—focusing on the heterogeneous, nonlinear, and hierarchical nature of cities—provide a pathway for specifying urban expansion gradients. The paper demonstrates how a spatial gradient model that considers urban, periphery, and exurban subregions complexifies the urban regional phenomenon, yielding crucial insights into the processes that drive expansion. Exploratory quantitative analysis of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) provides a prototype implementation, testing the utility of the gradient-based approach for all urban regions in the contiguous United States. Modeling covers both the full study period, 2001–16, and as separate 2001–11 and 2011–16 panels, assessing how relationships change over time. Results show that social–demographics, land use and transportation, regional economics, and physical drivers exhibit diverse impacts across the expansion gradient and over time. This work concludes with a call for scholars to deepen the approach presented here before conducting predictive or confirmatory modeling. 'Policy relevance' Urban expansion takes many forms and understanding those different forms can benefit decision-makers. Rather than a policy framework that treats urban growth as a regional phenomenon, a gradient-based approach is necessary, one that targets how expansion processes operate differently in urban, peripheral, and exurban subregions. By disaggregating the region, this research provides new insights into expansion dynamics such as how higher incomes and GDP growth tie to infill development; concentration of immigrants coincides with reduced land consumption across the gradient; age-based locational preferences yield compact growth; regions with greater natural resource economies and warmer temperatures have more exurban expansion; and steep slopes and open water constrict peripheral expansion. This kind of information allows for different institutions—from regional planning authorities to urban municipal governments to small town mayors—to address the drivers of expansion through more targeted and differentiated policy mechanisms, while also having more information to consider unintended consequences.

Opportunities for innovation in urban expansion research abound given the emergence of longitudinal and spatially explicit data. Scholars now use a broad array of data when analyzing expansion, yet the conceptual approach remains limited. Toward this end, this work extends conceptualization of expansion beyond the relatively simple economic approach that emphasizes population growth and income. Instead, insights from social-ecological theory--focusing on the heterogeneous, nonlinear, and hierarchical nature of cities--provide a pathway for specifying urban expansion gradients. The paper demonstrates how a spatial gradient model that considers urban, periphery, and exurban subregions complexifies the urban regional phenomenon, yielding crucial insights into the processes that drive expansion. Exploratory quantitative analysis of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) provides a prototype implementation, testing the utility of the gradientbased approach for all urban regions in the contiguous United States. Modeling covers both the full study period, 2001-16, and as separate 2001-11 and 2011-16 panels, assessing how relationships change over time. Results show that social-demographics, land use and transportation, regional economics, and physical drivers exhibit diverse impacts across the expansion gradient and over time. This work concludes with a call for scholars to deepen the approach presented here before conducting predictive or confirmatory modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions: With increasing focus on urban sustainability, new tools are needed to manage urban woodlands for resilience and ecosystem service provision. Functional traits can provide quantitative and testable links between urban plant communities and specific ecosystem properties (functional markers). We ask whether commonly described multivariate patterns of trait association with urbanization (trait syndromes) capture changes in ecosystem properties associated with urbanization. Given that environmental heterogeneity can generate weak or non‐linear trait–ecosystem property relationships, we ask whether linear methods can yield functional markers with significant power for different ecosystem properties. Location: Montreal metropolitan area (Canada). Methods: We documented the functional composition of 43 woodlands along an urbanization gradient and measured proxies of three ecosystem properties: plant colonization, soil water infiltration and organic matter decomposition. We use redundancy analysis to identify traits associated with urbanization, and multiple linear regression and model selection to identify response and effect traits that best predict actual differences in ecosystem properties. We compare the resulting linear model with a non‐linear equivalent. Results: Traits associated with urbanization (urban syndrome) were inconsistently selected as best predictors of ecosystems properties (functional markers). Although predictive power varied between ecosystem properties, all three could be significantly predicted from community‐weighted traits (functional markers), with both response and effect traits contributing to the final model. When we fitted equivalent non‐linear models, we found that traits had largely non‐linear relationships with ecosystem properties. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that community‐weighted traits of urban woodlands can yield functional markers that capture ecosystem properties, but these are inconsistently identified by "trait syndrome" approaches. In linear combinations, such functional markers provide a testable and generalizable way to quantify ecosystem properties in urban woodlands. Capturing such properties is one important step toward management of woodlands for their continued ability to provide ecosystem services into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many parts of the eastern US, the provision of ecosystem services depends on private land. In these regions, decisions about land management and conservation made by private landowners can have significant effects on habitat and other ecosystem services. Advancing permanent conservation of land can be particularly challenging in dynamic rural-to-urban landscapes facing development pressures. We estimated private landowner “conservation awareness” using a mail survey instrument to assess relative familiarity, knowledge, and experience with various conservation and land management options. Conservation awareness differed significantly by town, implying hotspots and troughs of awareness, potentially leading to significant geographical variation in landowner decision-making and long-term conservation futures. We were surprised to find that conservation awareness did not necessarily diminish in more suburbanized environments of our study area. Higher conservation awareness was related to enhanced conservation social capital at the town level as well as relative affluence. We suggest that low conservation awareness could represent a precursor to or symptom of eventual land use change and hence loss of habitat. As a result, conservation efforts should focus not only on biophysical aspects such as habitat connectivity and rarity, but also on the conservation awareness of owners of private land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban areas are key sources of reactive atmospheric nitrogen (N). Urban forests are moving towards a state of "N-saturation" due to N-deposition. However, the possible future-trend of inherent N-cycling in trees in response to urbanization-related N-deposition is not well known. With regard to the contradiction of current studies on the exogenous N-addition on endogenous N-retranslocation (NR) in the month- or season-long term, we treated 15-month old Changbai larch (Larixo lgensis Henry.) seedlings with ≤sup>15≤/sup>N-labeled ammonium sulfate supplied at rates of 0 (control), 30 (F30), 105 (F105), and 315 (F315) mg ≤sup>15≤/sup>N seedling≤sup>-1≤/sup> to simulate N-deposition at the accumulatively future amounts driven by urbanization. Seedlings were harvested nine days after treatment to determine their response of NR. Results revealed that N-deposition had a significant short-term effect on N-derived from plant (NDFP) in needles, wherein NDFP rose with the increase of ≤sup>15≤/sup>N-deposition intensity. In fine root (in diameter of 0-1 mm) NDFP in the F315 treatment was statistically higher than that in other treatments. There was a mean amount of 1.26 mg of N-retranslocated into needles, which accounted for 19% of total N-content. Results in the present study, together with the other ones we summarized, could be concluded that short-term NR in Changbai larch tended to increase in response to urbanization-related N-deposition. © 2014 Friends Science Publishers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanisation is arguably the most significant form of land use change as it has various impacts on the pattern, functionality and dynamics of landscapes. Such effects become particularly obvious if observed and analysed along an urban-to-rural gradient. This article presents a case study on long-term land use and impervious cover change along the urban-to-rural gradient in the German city of Leipzig - a special case because the urban region underwent dramatic societal changes during the past 100 years experiencing both world wars, socialism and transition to market economy. To depict this development we use small scale land use data based on topographic maps from 1870 to 2006. The results show that urbanisation is a strongly non-linear process. In summary, we found the urban-to-rural gradient had a strong tendency to decrease with regard to the percentage of impervious cover with a simultaneous increase of the total impervious cover. This trend is strengthened further by the fact that Leipzig has been growing little in terms of economy and population but rather experienced some form of de-densification in recent decades. The urban-to-rural gradient offers a promising approach to firstly integrate historical data into current land use change impact assessment and, secondly, to uncover effects of iterative and simultaneous phases of urban growth and decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study on the possible association of urbanization to attenuated nesting seasons for the tropical migratory bird Acadian Flycatcher in central Ohio. The study aims to illustrate variation in patterns and consequences of breeding phenology among birds involved in the study and evaluate the causes of variation in reproductive phenology with the occurrence of urbanization. The difference between the probability of renesting over the course of the breeding season in rural and urban sites are explored.

Changes in land use disrupt ecosystem patterns and processes and serve as precursors to other biotic and abiotic stressors. Forest ecosystems in the urban core typically differ structurally and functionally from those in rural areas. The overall objective of the study was to determine concentrations of selected air-borne contaminants (N, S, and heavy metals) over space and time and relate these to land-use changes. Elemental concentrations in lichens, soils, and tree cores were examined from 36 plots distributed along an urban-to-rural gradient surrounding Columbus, GA, USA. In situ lichen tissue exhibited the most significant differences among land-use types, with Cu, N, Pb, S, and Zn concentrations all significantly greater at urban sites. Lichen transplants revealed differences in concentrations between species, but not between land-use types. No discernable trends were observed regarding concentrations in soil and tree core data. Lichens appear to be a sensitive indicator of land-use change in this particular case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the Pinus elliottii plantations along an urban-rural gradient in Nanchang City as test objectives, and by using ion-exchange resin (IER) bag, this paper studied the seasonal dynamics of soil available nitrogen in the plantations, and analyzed the effects of urbanization on soil nitrogen supply. The results showed that the soil nitrogen supply in the plantations had an obvious seasonal fluctuation. Soil NH4+-N concentration was significantly higher in autumn and winter than in spring and summer, while soil NO3--N concentration, mineral N concentration, and relative nitrification rate were in adverse (P<0 .05). The seasonal dynamics of soil available nitrogen was basically consistent with the growth rhythm of P. elliottii. The soil nitrogen availability and relative nitrification ratio along the gradient differed greatly, being significantly higher in urban than in rural area (P<0.05). Urbanization accelerate d soil N mineralization and nitrification, enhanced soil nitrogen supply capacity, and increased soil NO3--N content. It was suggested that in the construction of urban forest, the plants with high N demand, especially with high NO3-- N absorption capacity, should be introduced to mitigate the soil available N loss and its induced environmental pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of urban tree cover is generally limited to inventories of tree structure and composition on public lands. This approach provided valuable information for resource management. However, it does not account for all tree cover within an urban landscape, thus providing insufficient information on ecological patterns and processes. We propose evaluating tree cover for an entire urban area that is based on patch dynamics. Treed patches are classified by their origin, structure, and management intensity. A patch approach enables ecologists to evaluate ecological patterns and processes for the entire urban landscape and to examine how social patterns influence these ecological patterns and processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]