Research
Project Description:
Deer populations are at an unprecedented high. The combination of human landscape alteration, increase in hunting protections, and functional disappearance of deer predators has caused a huge population boom for deer. Deer do not exist in a bubble, of course. They affect the environment around them and are affected by the environment. This deer population explosion is affecting forests and the deer exclosure plots at Ordway are one way that the Ordway team is investigating what changes are occurring in the oak forest due to the deer population increase.
In 2018 we established 12 paired exclosure locations in the oak forest at Ordway. Each location contains one plot surrounded by a 6-foot fence to prevent deer access, and one plot that is open. After just a couple years, we didn't even need statistics to see the effects of deer! The first photo below shows plant growth inside one of the fences. The last two photos show the plots from above, first outside and then inside the fence at one location. The camera height is the same for both photos!
Further analysis of the data has revealed that deer appear to aid invasion of the oak forest by garlic mustard, and that they alter the mixture of plant species in the understory of the forest. The effects of deer differed in different areas of the oak forest, however, and we would like to know why. One possibility is that deer activity is different in the different areas. We used camera traps to measure deer activity in the two areas, and now we need your help collecting the data from them.
Deer are also abundant in Ordway's floodplain forest. There, they enjoy feeding on seedlings of the tree species that make up the canopy and subcanopy layers of the forest: silver maple, ash, elm, and hackberry. These seedlings also face other threats, like competition from invasive shrubs like buckthorn and honeysuckle. If survival of these seedlings is too low, the mature trees will not be able to replace themselves with their own offspring when they die. This can undermine the long-term stability of the forest. In 2022, we began a deer exclosure and invasive shrub removal study to determine whether restoration efforts can help boost seedling survival in the presence of deer. Again, we are using camera traps to measure deer activity in the forest. And again, we will need the help of Zooniverse's volunteers to collect the data from these cameras.
This research has been made possible by the Duane Roberts Field Biology Study Fund, Young Researchers Fund, Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, Frenzel Fund, and Macalester College's Provost Office.
Special thanks to Stotra Chakrabarti of the Macalester Biology Department for providing us with the cameras.