Urban ecology ≈ Urban ecology
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Biodiversity in the City: Fundamental Questions for Understanding the Ecology of Urban Green Spaces for Biodiversity Conservation Open
As urban areas expand, understanding how ecological processes function in cities has become increasingly important for conserving biodiversity. Urban green spaces are critical habitats to support biodiversity, but we still have a limited u…
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Advancing Urban Ecology toward a Science of Cities Open
Urban ecology is a field encompassing multiple disciplines and practical applications and has grown rapidly. However, the field is heterogeneous as a global inquiry with multiple theoretical and conceptual frameworks, variable research app…
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Where is the UK's pollinator biodiversity? The importance of urban areas for flower-visiting insects Open
Insect pollinators provide a crucial ecosystem service, but are under threat. Urban areas could be important for pollinators, though their value relative to other habitats is poorly known. We compared pollinator communities using quantifie…
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How urbanization is driving pollinator diversity and pollination – A systematic review Open
Urban areas are growing worldwide and alter landscapes in a persistent fashion, thereby affecting biodiversity and ecosystem services such as pollination in a little understood way. Here we present a systematic review of the peer-reviewed …
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Increasing biodiversity in urban green spaces through simple vegetation interventions Open
Summary Cities are rapidly expanding world‐wide and there is an increasing urgency to protect urban biodiversity, principally through the provision of suitable habitat, most of which is in urban green spaces. Despite this, clear guidelines…
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An Ecology for Cities: A Transformational Nexus of Design and Ecology to Advance Climate Change Resilience and Urban Sustainability Open
Cities around the world are facing an ever-increasing variety of challenges that seem to make more sustainable urban futures elusive. Many of these challenges are being driven by, and exacerbated by, increases in urban populations and clim…
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A roadmap for urban evolutionary ecology Open
Urban ecosystems are rapidly expanding throughout the world, but how urban growth affects the evolutionary ecology of species living in urban areas remains largely unknown. Urban ecology has advanced our understanding of how the developmen…
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Evolution and future of urban ecological science: ecology in, of, and for the city Open
The contrast between ecology in cities and ecology of cities has emphasized the increasing scope of urban ecosystem research. Ecology in focuses on terrestrial and aquatic patches within cities, suburbs, and exurbs as analogs of non‐urban …
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Towards an urban marine ecology: characterizing the drivers, patterns and processes of marine ecosystems in coastal cities Open
Human population density within 100 km of the sea is approximately three times higher than the global average. People in this zone are concentrated in coastal cities that are hubs for transport and trade – which transform the marine enviro…
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Impacts of urbanisation on biodiversity: the role of species mobility, degree of specialisation and spatial scale Open
Urbanisation has an important impact on biodiversity, mostly driving changes in species assemblages, through the replacement of specialist with generalist species, thus leading to biotic homogenisation. Mobility is also assumed to greatly …
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Ecological connectivity research in urban areas Open
Summary The successful movement of individuals is fundamental to life. Facilitating these movements by promoting ecological connectivity has become a central theme in ecology and conservation. Urban areas contain more than half of the worl…
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Where the wild things are! Do urban green spaces with greater avian biodiversity promote more positive emotions in humans? Open
Urban green space can help mitigate the negative impacts of urban living and provide positive effects on citizens’ mood, health and well-being. Questions remain, however, as to whether all types of green space are equally beneficial, and i…
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Habitat urbanization and its effects on birds Open
By transforming landscapes, human activity creates new types of habitats with altered environmental characteristics that never existed before.As the process of habitat urbanization bears impact on more and more natural habitats, it is esse…
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The Benefits and Limits of Urban Tree Planting for Environmental and Human Health Open
Many of the world’s major cities have implemented tree planting programs based on assumed environmental and social benefits of urban forests. Recent studies have increasingly tested these assumptions and provide empirical evidence for the …
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Review: Toward management of urban ponds for freshwater biodiversity Open
Many cities around the world are expanding and this trend in urbanization is expected to sharply increase over coming decades. At the same time, the integration of green and blue spaces is widely promoted in urban development, potentially …
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Urbanization creates diverse aquatic habitats for immature mosquitoes in urban areas Open
Global increases in temperatures and urbanization are impacting the epidemiology of mosquito-borne diseases. Urbanization processes create suitable habitats for vector mosquitoes in which there are a reduced number of predators, and human …
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Urban Biodiversity and Landscape Ecology: Patterns, Processes and Planning Open
Effective planning for biodiversity in cities and towns is increasingly important as urban areas and their human populations grow, both to achieve conservation goals and because ecological communities support services on which humans depen…
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Perceived biodiversity, sound, naturalness and safety enhance the restorative quality and wellbeing benefits of green and blue space in a neotropical city Open
Urban land cover expansion and human population growth are accelerating worldwide. This is resulting in the loss and degradation of green and blue spaces (e.g. parks, waterways, lakes) in cities, which provide resources to sustain biodiver…
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Urban green spaces and sustainability: Exploring the ecosystem services and disservices of grassy lawns versus floral meadows Open
Urban green spaces provide important ecological, environmental, and cultural benefits, including biodiversity conservation and human wellbeing. However, a significant portion of urban green space is currently managed as highly manicured gr…
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The proportion of impervious surfaces at the landscape scale structures wild bee assemblages in a densely populated region Open
Given the predicted expansion of cities throughout the world, understanding the effect of urbanization on bee fauna is a major issue for the conservation of bees. The aim of this study was to understand how urbanization affects wild bee as…
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Socio‐eco‐evolutionary dynamics in cities Open
Cities are uniquely complex systems regulated by interactions and feedbacks between nature and human society. Characteristics of human society—including culture, economics, technology and politics—underlie social patterns and activity, cre…
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Impact of Urbanization on Birds Open
Urban habitats and landscapes are markedly different from nonurban "natural" habitats. The major difference is the transformation of the land, from natural green areas to anthropogenic structures and impervious surfaces. To survive in the …
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The Complex Issue of Urban Trees—Stress Factor Accumulation and Ecological Service Possibilities Open
This review paper is the first that summarizes many aspects of the ecological role of trees in urban landscapes while considering their growth conditions. Research Highlights are: (i) Plant growth conditions in cities are worsening due to …
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The Interplay Between Ozone and Urban Vegetation—BVOC Emissions, Ozone Deposition, and Tree Ecophysiology Open
Tropospheric ozone (O3) is one of the most prominent air pollution problems in Europe and other countries worldwide. Human health is affected by O3 via the respiratory as well the cardiovascular systems. Even though trees are present in re…
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Effects of biodiversity and environment-related attitude on perception of urban green space Open
Green space in cities contributes to the quality of life for city dwellers, e.g., by increasing the opportunity for recreation. However, perception of urban green space is influenced by multiple factors. We investigated effects of biodiver…
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Taxonomic and functional trait diversity of wild bees in different urban settings Open
Urbanization is one of the major anthropogenic processes contributing to local habitat loss and extirpation of numerous species, including wild bees, the most widespread pollinators. Little is known about the mechanisms through which urban…
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Street trees reduce the negative effects of urbanization on birds Open
The effects of streets on biodiversity is an important aspect of urban ecology, but it has been neglected worldwide. Several vegetation attributes (e.g. street tree density and diversity) have important effects on biodiversity and ecologic…
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The structure of flower visitor networks in relation to pollination across an agricultural to urban gradient Open
Summary Pollination is a major ecosystem service in which insects, particularly bees, play an important role for the reproduction of most angiosperms. Currently, this service is considered under threat due to reported bee declines. Moderat…
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Non‐linearities in bird responses across urbanization gradients: A meta‐analysis Open
Urbanization is one of the most extreme forms of environmental alteration, posing a major threat to biodiversity. We studied the effects of urbanization on avian communities via a systematic review using hierarchical and categorical meta‐a…
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Variation in Vegetation Structure and Composition across Urban Green Space Types Open
The ecological sustainability and function of urban landscapes is strongly influenced by the composition and structure of the local plant community. Taxonomic composition generally refers to the identity of the species comprising the commu…