Urban forests have been traditionally designed as monocultures, making them highly vulnerable to disturbances such as insects (as is being observed presently with the emerald ash borer). We theorize that forests which are more functionally diverse would also be more resilient to such pressures in the future. To test this theory, we install fake caterpillars made of clay in neighboring tree communities, varying the degree of functional dissimilarity, and measure the number of predation impacts in the clay and identified which predators (birds, insects, mammals) made them.
This study also doubles as a citizen science project as the research is done in partnership with elementary schools, helping kids to learn about science and biology in a hands on manner. The students make and install the caterpillars, then return a week later to count and identify the predation impacts.
