Lawrence C. Long's research while affiliated with North Carolina State University and other places

... Arthropods are experiencing global declines, which can disrupt energy transfer in food webs and affect ecosystem services (Hallmann et al., 2017;Lister & Garcia, 2018;Sánchez-Bayo & Wyckhuys, 2019). Arthropods are a particularly important food resources for birds, providing calcium and amino acids, and arthropods in urban forests are often crucial to bird success in urban environments (Long & Frank, 2020;Nagy & Holmes, 2005;Seress et al., 2018). The phenology of strict herbivores like caterpillars, the larval form of butterflies and moths in the order Lepidoptera, are reliant on particular plant communities (Koricheva & Hayes, 2018). ...

... . High scale densities can worsen tree condition and reduce their aesthetic value Just et al. 2019). However, trees growing where less impervious surface cover is present, such as in yards and parks, host lower scale densities that tend not to cause damage or reduce growth (Dale et al. 2016;Just et al. 2018;Meineke and Frank 2018). ...

... The extent of microclimatic buffering by urban forests and parks is largely determined by structural characteristics, such as canopy cover, tree species identity and richness, but also topography (Feyisa et al., 2014;Zellweger et al., 2019;Schwaab et al., 2021;Wang et al., 2021). The buffering capacity of urban forests is crucial for the health of citizens living in urban areas (Smoyer et al., 2000;Gillerot et al., 2022;Iungman et al., 2023), but can also substantially mitigate urban heat impacts on flora and fauna, such as temperatures that exceed species' thermal limits, as well as changes in phenology and pest infestations (Zipper et al., 2016;Long et al., 2019). For all these reasons, urban forests are increasingly proposed as a viable nature-based solution to moderate UHIs (van den Bosch and Ode Sang, 2017;Ziter et al., 2019;Wang et al., 2021;Iungman et al., 2023). ...