Projects

This study suggests that going for a walk in nature can have health promoting effects on stress-related brain regions, and consequently, it may act as a preventive measure against mental strain and potentially disease. Living in cities is associated with increased mental health risks. This study is causal in design and is an intervention study that investigates changes in the brain. This is the first study that we know to demonstrate the causal effects of acute exposure to natural vs. urban environment on stress-related brain regions, disentangling positive effects of nature from negative effects of city.

Biodiversity and biodiversity-based ecosystems services are intrinsically dependent on the climate. As biodiversity underlies all goods and services provided by ecosystems that are crucial for human survival and well-being, this paper synthesizes and discusses observed and anticipated impacts of climate change on biodiversity and biodiversity-based ecosystem service provision and livelihoods, and what strategies might be employed to decrease current and future risks on the well-being of human in Africa.

Background

This study aimed to explore whether walking in nature may be beneficial for individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). Healthy adults demonstrate significant cognitive gains after nature walks, but it was unclear whether those same benefits would be achieved in a depressed sample as walking alone in nature might induce rumination, thereby worsening memory and mood.

Methods

Twenty individuals diagnosed with MDD participated in this study. At baseline, mood and short term memory span were assessed using the PANAS and the backwards digit span (BDS) task, respectively. Participants were then asked to think about an unresolved negative autobiographical event to prime rumination, prior to taking a 50 minute walk in either a natural or urban setting. After the walk, mood and short-term memory span were reassessed. The following week, participants returned to the lab and repeated the entire procedure, but walked in the location not visited in the first session (i.e., a counterbalanced within-subjects design).

Results

Participants exhibited significant increases in memory span after the nature walk relative to the urban walk, p < .001, ηp2= .53 (a large effect-size). Participants also showed increases in mood, but the mood effects did not correlate with the memory effects, suggesting separable mechanisms and replicating previous work.

Limitations

Sample size and participants’ motivation.

Conclusions

These findings extend earlier work demonstrating the cognitive and affective benefits of interacting with nature to individuals with MDD. Therefore, interacting with nature may be useful clinically as a supplement to existing treatments for MDD.

• Participants exhibited significant increases in memory span after the nature walk relative to the urban walk, p < .001, ηp 2= .53 (a large effect-size). Participants also showed increases in mood, but the mood effects did not correlate with the memory effects, suggesting separable mechanisms and replicating previous work.
• Effect sizes nearly 5 times in depressed (MDD) as large as the effect sizes observed in healthy.

Several secretive marsh bird (SMB) species are both migrants and breeders in Missouri. The degree to which individual birds stay to nest in Missouri versus continuing north to breed is unknown and has resulted in uncertainty regarding the role of Missouri’s wetlands for this group of birds. One key uncertainty identified by many Department wetland managers is whether their management actions are emulating wetland processes that enable SMBs to fulfill their life history requirements while in Missouri. For managers to ensure successful outcomes for individuals that use Missouri either as a stopover location or a nesting destination, they must know not only the key wetland conditions required by the birds but also the timing of when these resources are needed. Our objective was to determine the effects of hydrologic management and habitat characteristics on SMB nest site selection and daily nest survival at two spatial scales: the individual wetland and the nest point (area within 50 m of nest).

Several secretive marsh bird (SMB) species are listed as “Critically Imperiled” in Missouri; however, little information exists on SMB distribution and habitat use within the state. As a result, wetland managers are uncertain as to how much SMBs use Missouri wetlands and the wetland processes they need to emulate in order to provide habitat for this guild of species. For this Science Note, we focus on the migratory SMBs.

With nearly every survey Resource Science Division conducts, administration, budgeters, and staff ask “Wouldn’t online surveys save MDC money?” and we respond, “It depends!” Online surveys have become attractive as a presumably economical way to measure constituents’ preferences, opinions, and attitudes. However, issues such as non-response bias, sample validity, and sampling error due to internet access differences in the population can have effects on representativeness, reliability, and accuracy. We examined response rates, responses, demographics, and potential sources of bias in the 2016 post-season firearms deer and deer hunter opinion surveys using 1) a mail-back paper survey and 2) an online survey sent to a sample of those with an email address in the point-of-sale (POS) system.

To promote the Missouri Department of Conservation’s (MDC) Community Forestry Program and help communities foresters need to help community decision-makers visualize forest resources as an infrastructure asset. The Community Forestry Program targets city and county governments, arborists, non-profit organizations, regional planning councils, the nursery industry, homeowners and other groups with an interest in managing community trees. Forestry Division annually spends ~ $440,000 in cost-share programs such as Tree Resource Improvements and Maintenance (TRIM). Understanding barriers to active management will allow MDC to target TRIM dollars to gain the greatest return.

In 2010 statewide measurement of community-owned street trees in Missouri collected physical tree attributes which can characterize their economic value. Community tree values are “public goods;” they do not come with a price tag attached but they benefit the entire community. Economists have many methods for estimating a dollar value of such public goods. The Forest Service has created software called “i-Tree,” a peer-reviewed package that provides urban and community forestry analysis and benefits assessment. i-Tree helps communities understand the environmental services trees provide. i-Tree has been used by communities, non-profit organizations and consultants to report on the urban forest at various scales from individual trees to entire states.

MDC’s Community Forestry Program advises, coordinates and facilitates efforts by many entities that own and affect the state’s community-owned trees. Assistance targeted at local governments, arborists, non-profit organizations and planning councils. MDC urban foresters and staff need a clearer picture of what trees occur along streets and how they change over time. Better management will improve the environmental, social and economic well being of each community and ultimately the entire state of Missouri.

In 2010, a third statewide survey of trees along streets in 44 Missouri communities was conducted by MDC. This follows measurements in 1989 and in 1999. The objective was to depict whether and how Missouri’s urban forests are changing over time. Communities were stratified into analysis classes by population and location with the number of randomly located plots in each community based on miles of road.