214 Luley and Bond: Fate of Ice Storm-Damaged Urban Maple Trees Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 2006. 32(5):214–220. Evaluation of the Fate of Ice Storm-Damaged Urban Maple (Acer) Trees Christopher J. Luley and Jerry Bond Abstract. Annually, ice storms cause millions of dollars of damage to urban trees and infrastructure in the United States and Canada. However, there is limited information to guide judgments on whether to remove ice-damaged trees. This study followed the response of three maple species that were damaged in the 1998 ice storm in northern New York State. Norway (Acer platanoides), silver (A. saccharinum), and sugar maples (A. saccharum) were placed in one of three diameter classes and canopy loss categories and were reevaluated 6 years after the initial damage. Over the 5-year study period, 26.8% of trees were removed, and there was no statistical difference among species, crown loss, or diameter class for these removals. Analysis of a variety of tree health and crown parameters showed that tree species was the most important factor in response, whereas diameter class and crown loss were less important. These results suggest that urban tree managers should consider tree species as an important factor in making removal decisions after an ice storm. Key Words. Acer platanoides; Acer saccharinum; Acer saccharum; canopy loss; ice damage; maple species; Norway maple; removal rate; silver maple; sprouting; tree response. Annually, ice damage to urban trees causes millions of dol- lars of losses in the United States. In the Northeast, there is a major ice storm once every ≈8 years. Between 2001 and 2004 alone, federal authorities declared 13 ice storm for states in the East and Midwest (FEMA 2005). Each of these storms caused extensive damage to urban trees in addition to requir- ing a major cleanup effort and causing major utility outages with associated costs often rising into many hundreds of mil- lions of dollars. Despite the frequent occurrence and extensive damage caused by ice storms, there are no standard long-term recom- mendations for managing ice-damaged trees in urban areas, although there are many for rural forests (Van Dyke 1999). The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will reimburse communities in declared disaster areas for remov- ing trees that have 50% or greater canopy loss (FEMA 1999), although the basis of that position has not been documented by this agency as far as we have been able to ascertain. Simple guidelines used by many urban forest managers are contained in a two-page fact sheet distributed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (Shortle and Smith 1998). In that guide, primarily aimed at rural forest owners, it is suggested that trees with greater than 50% crown loss will likely decline in the long term. In the short term, ice damage impact is primarily the result of the direct loss of live canopy from stem breakage that will result in low chances for survival (Shortle and Smith 1998a, 1998b). Older studies ©2006 International Society of Arboriculture concluded that extensive canopy loss could cause direct mor- tality (Spaulding and Bratton 1946; Carvell et al. 1957). More recently, trees with greater than 75% crown loss have been recommended for immediate removal (Sisinni et al. 1995; Shortle and Smith 1998a, 1998b), and mortality of paper and yellow birch after an ice storm in New England forest eco- systems was attributed to Armillaria root disease killing ice- damaged trees (Shortle et al. 2003). Species vary in their susceptibility to ice storm damage. There are two excellent studies documenting the ice storm damage to different tree species grown under urban condi- tions in Urbana, Illinois (Hauer et al. 1993) and in Rochester, New York (Sisinni et al. 1995). In these as well as in studies of rural forests, sugar maple (Acer saccharum) is rated as intermediate in susceptibility to ice damage (Downs 1938; Croxton 1939; Lemon 1961; Bruederle and Sterns 1985; Mel- ancon and Lechowicz 1987; Seischab et al. 1993; Hauer et al. 1994; Sisinni et al. 1995). However, in Ontario, Canada, se- rious damage to sugar maple was observed in some locations in the massive 1998 storm (Irland 1998). Silver maple (A. saccharinum), on the other hand, is usually severely damaged by ice and is rated as susceptible, whereas Norway maple (A. platanoides) is rated as resistant (Hauer et al. 1994; Sisinni et al. 1995). Recent studies have focused on the differing ability of individual deciduous species to tolerate crown loss. This abil- ity depends on the particular combination of two strategies:
September 2006
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