Encouraging Multispecies Sociability through Art: Anthropomorphism in The Visitor Centre

Proposes an approach to assessing the state of plant species (based on an example of assessing the state of large-leaved linden) in urban environment on the basis of fuzzy information from a group of experts. Formalization of the expert information is carried out on the basis of complete orthogonal semantic spaces. The proposed approach allows to avoid mistakes in the assessment of a single expert. Assessment of plant species needed for prediction of their state and landscaping plan.

Abstract. Urban wildlife management is growing in importance in the U.S. and Canada. This paper describes the archetypical history of wildlife population exploitation, recovery, impact management, and the anthropogenic root-causes for management of many species in urban environments. Although urban and traditional wildlife management situations differ in many ways, in both contexts, some species are welcome to co-exist with humans, while other species are considered intolerable. Management approaches and techniques tailored to urban situations are still in early days of development. Urban wildlife management issues tend to be “wicked problems” (problems where disparate human values lead to different interpretations of desirable outcomes and acceptable means of achieving them). People sharing the same space with each other and with wildlife inevitably perceive different impacts from wildlife. Experience has amply demonstrated the difficulty of finding a management response that is accepted across all segme...

Most ecosystems are increasingly being degraded and reduced by human activities at the local and global scales. In contrast, urban environments are expanding as increasing portions of humanity move into cities. Despite the common perception among biologists that urban areas are biological deserts, cities offer habitat for many non-human species, but their ecology and conservation remain poorly studied. In this review, we first provide an update on the current state of knowledge on urban wildlife, then briefly examine the indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban wildlife and add four components not previously included in comprehensive reviews. (1) We show that by reducing human activity, COVID-19 has temporarily enhanced urban habitat quality for some species and diminished it for others. (2) Thoughtful horticulture can contribute to urban wildlife by providing complex habitat structures that benefit biodiversity while enhancing human wellbeing. (3) Recent literature on urban invertebrate biodiversity has grown, though is still focused on pollinators. (4) Finally, employing insights from the discipline of communication can enhance the success of urban biodiversity conservation among both biologists and the public.

What are the links among the concepts of global public health, human health and animal welfare? The objective of this chapter is to discuss the relationship between public health and animal welfare issues, from the historical perspective of rabies control to the more recent challenges brought by the populations of different vertebrate species in urban environments. From what has been learned so far, considering both the efficiency and ethics of animal population control strategies, a change in paradigm is needed. The killing of animals for the sake of public health appears to be ineffective in the case of dogs and other animals studied; at this stage, proponents of this strategy should carry the burden of proof for its effectiveness based on knowledge of the population dynamics of the species involved. In some cases, urban animals can play a positive role in the control of zoonotic disease problems, especially if they receive health and welfare attention. Overall, zoonotic diseases, as well as health and welfare maintenance, occur within dynamic processes which cannot be dealt with by employing only short-term approaches.

Urbanization has significant impacts on wildlife and ecosystems and acts as an environmental filter excluding certain species from local ecological communities. Specifically, it may be challenging for some animals to find enough food in urban environments to achieve a positive energy balance. Because urban environments favor small‐sized bats with low energy requirements, we hypothesized that common noctules (Nyctalus noctula) acquire food at a slower rate and rely less on conspecifics to find prey in urban than in rural environments due to a low food abundance and predictable distribution of insects in urban environments. To address this, we estimated prey sizes and measured prey capture rates, foraging efforts, and the presence of conspecifics during hunting of 22 common noctule bats equipped with sensor loggers in an urban and rural environment. Even though common noctule bats hunted similar‐sized prey in both environments, urban bats captured prey at a lower rate (mean: 2.4 vs. 6.3 prey attacks/min), and a lower total amount of prey (mean: 179 vs. 377 prey attacks/foraging bout) than conspecifics from rural environments. Consequently, the energy expended to capture prey was higher for common noctules in urban than in rural environments. In line with our prediction, urban bats relied less on group hunting, likely because group hunting was unnecessary in an environment where the spatial distribution of prey insects is predictable, for example, in parks or around floodlights. While acknowledging the limitations of a small sample size and low number of spatial replicates, our study suggests that scarce food resources may make urban habitats unfavorable for large bat species with higher energy requirements compared to smaller bat species. In conclusion, a lower food intake may displace larger species from urban areas making habitats with high insect biomass production key for protecting large bat species in urban environments.

Despite a growing literature‐base devoted to document biodiversity patterns in cities, little is known about the processes that influence these patterns, and whether they are consistent over time. In particular, numerous studies have identified the capacity of cities to host a rich diversity of plant species. This trend, however, is driven primarily by introduced species, which comprise a large proportion of the urban species pool relative to natives. Using an experimental common garden study, we assessed the relative influence of local assembly processes (i.e., soil environmental filtering and competition from spontaneous urban species) on the taxonomic and functional diversity of native plant communities sampled over four seasons in 2016–2018. Taxonomic and functional diversity exhibited different responses to local processes, supporting the general conclusion that species‐ and trait‐based measures of biodiversity offer distinct insights into community assembly dynamics. Additionally, we found that neither soil nor competition from spontaneous urban species influenced taxonomic or functional composition of native species. Functional composition, however, did shift strongly over time and was driven by community‐weighted mean differences in both measured traits (maximum height, Hmax; specific leaf area, SLA; leaf chlorophyll a fluorescence, Chl a) and the relative proportions of different functional groups (legumes, annual and biennial‐perennial species, C4 grasses, and forbs). By contrast, taxonomic composition only diverged between early and late seasons. Overall, our results indicate that native species are not only capable of establishing and persisting in vacant urban habitats, they can functionally respond to local filtering pressures over time. This suggests that regional dispersal limitation may be a primary factor limiting native species in urban environments. Thus, future regreening and management plans should focus on enhancing the dispersal potential of native plant species in urban environments, in order to achieve set goals for increasing native species diversity and associated ecosystem services in cities.

A multiple criteria decision-making approach to put forward tree species in urban environment

Although urban ecosystems are hotspots for biological invasions, the field of invasion science has given scant attention to invasion dynamics and the challenges facing managers in towns and cities. This paper provides an introduction to the growing challenges of understanding and managing invasive species in urban systems, and the context for a special issue of Biological Invasions, comprising 17 papers, that arose from a workshop on “Non-native species in urban environments: patterns, processes, impacts and challenges” held in Stellenbosch, South Africa, in November 2016. Contributions explore the following key questions: Are patterns and processes of urban invasions different from invasions in other contexts? Why is it important to manage non-native species in urban ecosystems? What are the special management needs in an urban context? How can we bridge the gaps between science, management, and policy with regards to biological invasions in urban ecosystems? The papers in this special issue show that patterns and processes of urban invasions differ in many ways from invasions in other contexts, and that managing invasive species in cities poses unique and increasingly complex challenges. Progress in urban invasion science requires further work to: (1) address key limitations that hinder our understanding of invasion dynamics in cities; (2) clarify whether fundamental concepts in the field of invasion science are appropriate for urban ecosystems; (3) integrate insights from invasion science with those from the burgeoning literature on the “Anthropocene biosphere”, novel ecosystems, social–ecological systems, human–wildlife conflicts, urban green infrastructure, urban planning and design, and ecosystem services/disservices.

Eastern cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus) are common, conspicuous denizens of urban environments. They are associated with human-wildlife conflict due to vegetation damage. Prior to this study, population dynamics of this species in urban environments remained largely uncharacterized. For three consecutive winters, we used classic field ecology methods (mark-recapture and mark–resight surveys) to estimate demographic parameters of rabbits in a city park in Chicago, Illinois. Rabbits occurred in densities as high as 16.3 rabbits/ha, which is comparatively high for the Midwestern United States. An annual survivorship of 30.4 ± 12.9 % SE was similar to that observed in natural environments in similar climates. This result refuted our hypothesis that urban rabbits would have higher annual survival rates than rabbits in natural settings due to food subsidies supplied by landscaping in parks. Mean distance between trap locations for rabbits trapped three or more times was 43.14 ± 30.01 m SD, suggesting that rabbits in the urban study area had smaller home ranges than rabbits in non-human-dominated habitats. This study contributes to our understanding of population dynamics of a human-wildlife conflict species in urban environments and provides useful information for managers dealing with damage caused by rabbits. The mark-resight method employed here could be used by managers to estimate pre- and post-management population sizes of other conflict species, for example Canada geese (Branta Canadensis), in parks and green spaces, provided that the species is trappable, visible, and individuals have relatively small home ranges.

Vertical surfaces in urban environments represent a potential expansion of niche space for lithophytic fern species. There are, however, few records of differential success rates of fern species in urban environments. The occurrence rates of 16 lithophytic fern species native to the northeastern USA in 14 biomes, including four urban environments differentiated by percentage of impervious surfaces, were evaluated. In addition, the natural macroclimatic ranges of these species were analyzed to test whether significant differences existed in climatic tolerance between species that occur in urban environments and species that do not. Three species appear to preferentially occur in urban environments, two species may facultatively occur in urban environments, and the remaining 11 species preferentially occur in nondeveloped rural environments. The natural range of fern species that occur in urban environments had higher summer temperatures than the range of species that do not, whereas other macroclimatic variables, notably winter temperatures and precipitation, were less important or insignificant. Vertical surfaces in urban environments may represent novel niche space for some native lithophytic fern species in northeastern USA. However, success in this environment depends, in part, on tolerance of the urban heat island effect, especially heating of impervious surfaces in summer.

Urban encroachment increasingly threatens wildlife survival and well‐being, underscoring the need for design and management to consider nonhuman species. This article analyses cases of positive coexistence between humans and Powerful Owls (Ninox strenua) to identify key challenges, opportunities, objectives and practical strategies for urban planning. As a species historically linked to old‐growth forests, powerful owls now inhabit urban environments but face significant human‐induced pressures, including diminishing numbers of nesting sites. To explore the potential for positive coexistence, we conducted 10 in‐depth interviews with 19 individuals experienced in observing and advocating for powerful owls. These interviews took place either online or during guided walks through owl habitats in Australian cities. This approach allowed us to supplement existing scientific research, highlight future research areas and document human–owl interactions across three themes. First, participants identified barriers to improving coexistence, including insufficient consideration of owls in urban decision‐making, conflicts between human activities and owl conservation, and the need for improved knowledge sharing. Second, participants' experiences demonstrated that greater knowledge of owl behaviour and habitat preferences can play a vital role in fostering positive coexistence. Third, participants provided specific examples of positive coexistence, illustrating how and why people form relationships with urban wildlife. Building on these findings, we propose urban management strategies that incorporate contributions of nonhuman stakeholders, empowering them to influence decision‐making. Such strategies can promote positive coexistence, facilitate knowledge exchange and guide informed actions. This research can provide valuable guidance for land managers, conservationists, policymakers, ecologists, designers and researchers in environmental humanities working to create inclusive, more‐than‐human urban environments. This guidance includes (a) methods for integrating nonhuman stakeholders into design, planning, management and development processes; (b) approaches to redefining landscape features as catalysts for positive human–wildlife interactions; and (c) examples of technical systems that enhance information flow among stakeholders, encouraging innovation, the adoption of new solutions and accountability. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Five articles in this volume of Nursing Ethics deal with empirical as well as theoretical perspectives on an ethics of care. In 2011, Nursing Ethics, following a workshop on an ethics of care in Rome 2010, already has published nine articles on normative issues in care ethics. In 2012, the Ethics of Care research group at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, arranged an invited workshop in Utrecht, presenting various perspectives on care ethics from several European countries. The Tilburg group took the initiative for publishing these articles in the Journal of Nursing Ethics. The field of care ethics is expanding rapidly within the European context, much as a result of very strong research groups in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. What we see in Europe and perhaps in some contrast to the United States and Canada is a growing emphasis on empirical research, related to care ethical theories. There is a parallel there with bioethics going empirical. The ethics of care, however, has its own epistemological reason to do empirical research, that is, qualitative empirical research with a strong emphasis on the perspective of vulnerable people. The first person’s knowledge of vulnerable people is of importance according to the ethics of care. The five articles in this volume of the journal reflect this tendency, with three articles more clinically oriented, while two deal with conceptual and theoretical issues. Our view is that overall, a balance between theoretical and empirical work in care ethics is very fruitful for the development of care theories in general and care ethical theories in particular. It is natural that experiences within clinical and professional context of care are reflected upon in the philosophical and conceptual work in care ethics. Great parts of ethics are far removed from the particular context of clinical care work. Knowledge as it emerges in care practice is not taken into account by that type of ethics. This distance makes philosophy irrelevant and less plausible. On the other hand, clinical ethical work in healthcare must have a solid basis in theory, to co-create critical reflection. Therefore, the theoretical basis of an ethics of care has to be strengthened as well, in order to become a full-fledged normative theory. It is not sufficient that ethics of care claims that it is ‘relational’ or is based even upon a ‘relational ontology’, without more concretely specifying what this, normatively speaking, amounts to. Competing ethical theories from the virtue ethical tradition as well as from ethical consequentialism would claim that it has a relational normative orientation and can encompass care ethical concerns. The question is about the relevance of relational considerations as normatively significant. The same goes for the relevance of context and of power issues, two more ideas dear to the ethics of care. Theoretically and empirically, the ethics of care thus face a challenge to strengthen its claims about the necessity to use the perspective of vulnerable people, to use relational and contextual knowledge.

The critically endangered golden sun‐moth Synemon plana occurs in urban fringe areas of southeastern Australia that are currently experiencing rapid and extensive development. The urban fringe is a complex and uncertain environment in which to manage threatened species with the intersection of fragmented natural habitats, built environments and human populations generating novel, poorly understood interactions. In this context, management frameworks must incorporate ecological processes as well as social considerations. Here, we explore how biodiversity sensitive urban design might improve the fate of the golden sun‐moth, and threatened species generally, in urban fringe environments. We: (i) developed an expert‐informed Bayesian Belief Network model that synthesizes the current understanding of key determinants of golden sun‐moth population viability at sites experiencing urbanizing pressure; (ii) quantified the nature and strength of cause‐effect relationships between these factors using expert knowledge; and (iii) used the model to assess expectations of moth population viability in response to different combinations of management actions. We predict that adult survival, bare ground cover and cover of resource plants are the most important variables affecting the viability of golden sun‐moth populations. We also demonstrate the potential for biodiversity sensitive urban design as a complementary measure to conventional management for this species. Our findings highlight how expert knowledge may be a valuable component of conservation management, especially in addressing uncertainty around conservation decisions when empirical data are lacking, and how structured expert judgements become critical in supporting decisions that may help ameliorate extinction risks faced by threatened species in urban environments.

Urbanization - the anthropogenic conversion of natural ecosystems into human-dominated ecosystems - has occurred on global scales. The human-dominated landscape presents particular challenges to researchers because the effects of urbanization on ecological processes are not well understood. We investigated the influence of urbanization on predation by conducting an artificial nest experiment along an urban gradient of six sites ranging from natural to urbanized ecosystems. Previous hypotheses suggest that predation pressures in urban environments will either 1) increase because of the high abundance of exotic species which act as predators or 2) decrease due to the lack of natural predators. To determine relative predation pressures among sites along the urban gradient, we monitored the fates of 16 artificial avian nests at each of the six sites for a total of 96 nests in each year (1996, 1997). We analyzed the dependency of nest fate (depredated or undisturbed) on intensity of urbanization (sites along the urban gradient), nest height (ground, above-ground), and year using loglinear models. The frequency of nest predation was strongly dependent on site along the urban gradient, indicating that urbanization intensity was an important determinant of nest fate. Predation pressure exhibited an overall decline from natural to urban sites in both years, suggesting that urban environments have low predation pressures relative to natural areas. The predatory relaxation in urban environments may partially explain the greater abundance of some species in urban environments, particularly urban exploiters such as european starlings Sturnis vulgaris. house sparrows Passer domesticus. and rock doves Columba livia.

In some Australian and South American cities, nectarivorous birds have become a conspicuous component of the avifaunal community. One mechanism that has been proposed to explain their success is an increased availability of nectar that is provided by suburban gardens and other ornamental plantings. To determine whether the amount of nectar within the suburban landscape is comparable to that of the natural environment, we measured floral density and nectar concentrations in 24 sites in Sydney, Australia. We also measured the density of four species of nectarivores and available nectar energy over a period of 18 months within the suburban landscape (streetscapes and remnant vegetation) and the natural environment (forest and heathland) to determine whether nectar availability explains nectarivore density. Two species of nectarivorous parrot, the rainbow lorikeet and musk lorikeet were present in higher densities within the suburban landscapes compared to the natural environment, and the suburban landscapes provided significantly more nectar than the natural environment during spring and winter. Both the rainbow lorikeet and musk lorikeet were associated with flowering of Eucalyptus spp. and red wattlebirds with the flowering of Grevillea and Callistemon spp. within streetscapes. Suburban landscapes appear to provide a constant supply of nectar for large-bodied nectarivores and provide for more efficient foraging, explaining the success of these species in urban environments.