UMBC
AN HONORS UNIVERSITY IN MARYLAND
CUERE
Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
1000 Hilltop Circle 21250
Phone: 410-455-1761
Fax: 410-455-1769
E-mail: jra@umbc.ecu
http://www.umbc.edu/cuere
April 4, 2003
Dear Resident,
Spring has arrived and as you may have noticed there are students working
in Cub Hill.
The first of these students are from Dr. Erle Ellis’s “Field Methods
in Geography” class at UMBC. The students have been mapping the Cub Hill
landscape and talking to residents. They are interested in how landuse around
Cub Hill is arranged and how it has changed over the last 50 years (1953 –
2003).
The second group of students is from Towson University and is being supervised
by Dr. Katalin Szlavecz from Johns Hopkins University. Urban areas provide
habitats for more species than previously thought. Some of these species are
pests while others play important roles in the ecosystems, being natural predators
of these pests, or facilitating decomposition and soil development. The objective
of the study is to see how management practices affect biodiversity in the
soil and will focus on two groups of invertebrates: arthropods (insects, centipedes,
spiders, pillbugs) and earthworms. This research provides a wonderful opportunity
for student involvement.
With a soil corer, we will collect a core (2 inch round by 2 inch deep) and
take it to a lab to count insects, centipedes, spiders and pillbugs living
in the soil sample. A small partially covered plastic cup filled halfway with
water will be placed in the soil-core hole. This cup, or bug-trap, will catch
insects that crawl on the surface of the lawn. The bug-traps will be emptied
daily, and after five days the cups will be collected and the hole filled
with fresh soil. Three cores and three pitfall traps per lawn are planned.
We expect different species of arthropods will become dominant in different
seasons; therefore following the first sampling during the week of April 14th,
we plan to repeat the whole sampling scheme in mid-June.
We would also like to repeat the earthworm sampling we started last summer.
Due to the extreme drought we were able to extract only a few individuals.
We were able to identify five species in the Cub Hill neighborhood. One was
a very rare native species, Diplocardia texensis, which so far has only been
found in forests. A spring (scheduled for the week of April 14th) and early
summer sampling would give us a better picture about the distribution and
density of the different earthworm species. Prior to any sampling, we will
talk to individual homeowners to describe the sampling methods and to ask
for permission to collect earthworms and other soil invertebrates in their
yards.
We have also begun to contact individual homeowners to temporarily install
five meteorological stations throughout the Cub Hill neighborhood. These stations
will measure and record air and soil temperature, soil moisture as well as
wind speed and wind direction. We will also install stream temperature gauges
as well as some stream gauging stations in area streams that will monitor
water temperature and flow. We have included some pictures of the stations.
We are including the two separate pages showing the results of the nutrient
analysis of your lawn areas. The first page is map of all the separate area
delineations that we were able to determine last year. These are all individually
numbered as separate plots. The second page is a chart showing nutrient information
for lawn plots on your property. We have only analyzed a portion of the soil
samples. As other analysis information becomes available, we will send it
to you. We have included information on pH (acidity), magnesium, phosphorus,
potassium, calcium and organic matter. Use the plot numbers on the map to
compare nutrient information in the chart. You can use this information along
with the accompanying Maryland Cooperative Extension fertilization recommendation
to enhance your gardening this year. If you have any questions concerning
this information, please call. We hope this will be of some help to you in
the coming months for lawn maintenance.
We are excited about working at Cub Hill and invite and appreciate your participation.
If you have any questions about the project please call Jonathan Russell-Anelli
at (410) 455-1761.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Russell-Anelli
Field Supervisor