I measured health indicating pigments, nutrient ions, stress signaling metabolites, and morphological traits that can integrate multiple stress impacts and provide insight into urban forest trees’ ability to effectively mitigate urban conditions.
![maple seedlings maple seedlings](http://harkeslandscape.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/WP_20140513_0021-1024x575.jpg)
In addition, a manipulated field experiment was used to decipher above- and below-ground urbanization impacts on the physio-morphology of red maple (A. The FoRests Among Managed Ecosystem (FRAME) network was used to investigate urbanization (e.g., city size) impacts on the physio-biochemistry and morphology of red maple (Acer rubrum L.) in urban forests in a small (Newark, DE) and large (Philadelphia, PA) city. Cities are a natural ‘open lab’, and city size can be a proxy for multiple co-occurring impacts on plants that determine productivity and acclimation to better assess plant effectiveness. Moreover, the lack of data on the physiology, biochemistry, morphology, and long-term stress adaptation of plants in urban environment is a current gap in urban plant-ecology research. However, plant data supporting urban plants as environmental mitigating infrastructures are sparse, inconsistent, and not long-term in approach. This infrastructure is extremely vital to achieving ‘greener’ cities, as the globe becomes more urbanized.
![maple seedlings maple seedlings](https://store.speedtree.com/site-assets/uploads/store-images/red_maple_seedling_fall_opacity.jpg)
The urban forest should be viewed as living ‘public health’ and an environment ‘bio-recording’ infrastructure in urban environments.