As keystone structures in urban ecosystems, trees are critical to addressing many of the current livability, health, and environmental challenges facing cities. Every day, trees are removed from urban landscapes as part of routine management. These tree removals are an opportunity for implementing manipulative experiments to directly measure the social and ecological functions of trees. Here we review the kinds of tree removals that commonly occur in cities, assess the relevant opportunities that arise for research–practice partnerships, and discuss the challenges posed when implementing experiments of this nature. We argue that experimental studies on the routine removal of urban trees will improve and expand the mechanistic understanding of how trees support biodiversity and human well-being in cities beyond current knowledge, which is largely based on correlative studies. Finally, we highlight the opportunity for experiments to be co-designed by scientists and urban land managers, and how “learning while doing” can generate tangible research impacts and improve urban forest decision making.

中文翻译：

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砍伐树木作为城市的社会生态实验

作为城市生态系统的关键结构，树木对于解决城市当前面临的许多宜居、健康和环境挑战至关重要。作为日常管理的一部分，每天都会从城市景观中移除树木。这些树木的砍伐为实施操纵性实验以直接测量树木的社会和生态功能提供了机会。在这里，我们回顾了城市中常见的树木砍伐类型，评估了研究与实践伙伴关系出现的相关机会，并讨论了实施这种性质的实验时所带来的挑战。我们认为，对城市树木的常规清除的实验研究将改善和扩大对树木如何支持城市生物多样性和人类福祉的机制理解，超出目前的知识，这主要基于相关研究。最后，我们强调了科学家和城市土地管理者共同设计实验的机会，以及“边做边学”如何产生切实的研究影响并改善城市森林决策。