Ecosystem Services in a Transitional Forest Landscape: Shifting Trajectories in Southeast Michigan,USA |
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| Authors: | Nathan Clay Kayla Yurco Arun Agrawal Lauren Persha |
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| Affiliation: | 1. School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK;2. Department of Integrated Science and Technology, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA;3. School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA;4. NORC, University of Chicago, Bethesda, MD, USA |
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| Abstract: | North American forests provide multiple ecosystem services, such as carbon storage, biodiversity, and recreation. These services are often coordinated through multifunctional management, whereby various users and owners contribute to collective agendas. Forests in exurban “transition” zones are crucial components in the sustainability of broader metropolitan landscapes, but represent a particularly understudied confluence of ecosystem services and multifunctional management. In this paper, we develop a place-based approach to assess ecosystem services in transitional forests (those between rural and urban). We demonstrate how trajectories of forest composition are linked with shifting ecosystem services that both shape and are shaped by management activities. Sited in Stinchfield Woods, a forest in southeast Michigan, this study draws on a household survey, interviews, ecological data, and archival information. Given variations in priorities over time and among different users, we suggest that coordinated, adaptive management may improve provisioning of ecosystem services in ways that benefit multiple users. |
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| Keywords: | Ecosystem services exurban forest forest management landscape history local institutions multifunctional forest |
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