News and Events
EMMA Intern Spotlight
Hanna Giedraitis and Sydney King contributed to monitoring, management, and early detection of Beech Leaf Disease and Spotted Lanternfly at the Louis Calder Center. They surveyed for Spotted Lanternfly and set up long-term monitoring plots of Beech Leaf Disease to understand its spread and progression across EMMA sites. Click on the photo to view their educational video on Beech Leaf Disease and Spotted Lanternfly.
Internship Highlights
Take a look at some of the amazing work done by our past interns!
Calder Center's New Land Manager
Chomri Khayi, Calder Center's new land manager, is creating a land management plan for the 113-acre research station in Armonk, New York. Photo: Hector Martinez
Herbarium Digitization with Vassar
A Vassar College grant from the National Science Foundation to Advance Digitization of Biological Collections from EMMA sites allows access to herbarium specimens available to anyone with access to the internet.
Long Term Ice Phenology
Mohonk Preserve’s Daniel Smiley Research Center maintains a 126 year collection of weather data recordings at Mohonk Lake. Lake ice phenology data from the DSRC was recently published in the journal 'Scientific Data.' These data allow us to understand how lakes are responding to climate change.
Citizen Science Across Two Centuries
A study by EMMA’s Dr. Kerissa Fuccillo Battle of Community Greenways Collaborative and Dr. Conrad Vispo of Farmscape Ecology Project highlights the value of observing seasonal changes by comparing data from 200 years ago with phenology data collected today.
Deer Management & Forest Regeneration
In 2004, Mianus River Gorge began a deer management program that included recreational hunting. Data such as hours hunted, deer seen, and number of deer harvested along with annual estimates of deer density using camera traps and vegetation analyses have allowed for an in-depth look at their management program, specifically whether the program was reducing deer density in the Preserve, and if that reduction was allowing the trees to grow back. The results of this large and multi-faceted study were recently published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management in January 2022 by MRG’s Chris Nagy, Budd Veverka and others.
Wildlife Management Studies
EMMA members contributed to two recent wildlife studies. The first used a national database (which included pictures from EMMA members, Mianus River Gorge and Black Rock Forest) to examine how bobcats are affected by other predators such as coyotes and wolves … and humans. MRG's Director of Research, Chris Nagy, helped with analysis. The second study used more than 600k pictures collected across NYC by MRG as part of their Gotham Coyote Project (https://www.facebook.com/gothamcoyote/) from 2016-2019. The data was shared with Queens College master's student, Angelinna Bradfield, and analyzed for two chapters in her thesis in David Lahti's lab.
New Members Welcome
EMMA has begun the process of reviewing new prospective members. If your organization is interested in EMMA membership, fill out the survey linked here.
No Upcoming events at this time.
