Monitoring and Managing Ash (MaMA) Training Workshop

The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), an invasive insect, threaten to kill virtually all the native ash trees across the region. The Managing and Monitoring Ash (MaMA) program of the Ecological Research Institute (ERI) is an integrated approach to ash conservation and EAB mitigation in light of this threat (see MonitoringAsh.org).

In this workshop, you’ll learn how, as a citizen scientist or land manager, you can take specific ash-conservation steps that fit into an overall EAB-management strategy. These steps include participating in any of MaMA’s three citizen-science and land-manager projects, all ultimately aimed to detect “lingering ash” – native trees that remain healthy even after almost all the ash around them have died. These trees are likely genetically resistant to EAB, and provide the greatest hope for ash conservation and restoration. ERI is working closely with the United States Forest Service (USFS) to locate them to enable propagation of resistant native trees.

The workshop will include training in all three of these projects, including one to report EAB’s presence (or absence) based on recognition of this pest’s definitive signs, one to search for lingering ash, and one to establish monitoring plots included in the rapidly growing MaMA Monitoring Plot Network, extending through much of the Northeast. ERI analyzes the data from these plots to determine which areas should be searched for lingering ash. The workshop also includes an introduction to MaMA’s “Possible Lingering Ash Toolkit” (essential for protecting potential lingering ash from being cut down), and introduction to MaMA’s other tools and overall approach to EAB management and ash conservation.

Attendance of an ERI MaMA training workshop is required for participation in both the MaMA Lingering Ash Search project and the MaMA Monitoring Plots Network projects, because of the need to follow scientifically rigorous protocols. This workshop will be presented by MaMA’s originators: ERI’s director, Jonathan Rosenthal, and senior scientist, Dr. Radka Wildova, both experts in EAB ecology and management.

This workshop is free. Pre-registration is required.