College of Food, Ag & Nat Res Sci
Twin Cities
The global extent and total human population of cities have approximately doubled since 1990 and continue to increase at unprecedented rates. In light of this growth, it is crucial to understand how species respond to urbanization in order to protect biodiversity and safeguard the benefits people derive from nature. However, our knowledge of how species respond to change is currently limited by the relatively short-term character of most urban ecological research. Conclusions about how ecological patterns and processes are altered in cities are generally inferred by comparing urban and adjacent non-urban areas (substituting space for time), which risks overlooking important temporal dynamics and drawing inaccurate conclusions. As a result, major questions remain unanswered on whether cities can sustain faunal populations over many decades and the specific conditions under which this is possible. Because the highly modified nature of urban ecosystems can make it difficult to know which species and functions have been lost over time, uncertainty regarding earlier dynamics also constrains the ability to plan and implement effective ecological restoration in cities. Historical data can help overcome these limitations and forecast the response of wildlife to possible future changes.
The overarching goal of this research is thus to leverage previously untapped long-term data sources to understand how animal occupancy and diversity have changed in cities over time and apply this knowledge to support urban design, management, and ecological restoration. Three specific objectives support this goal:
-
Synthesize research on how urban areas change over time relevant to the recolonization, reintroduction, and recovery of animal species
-
Analyze long-term changes in bird occupancy within a major metropolitan area and determine factors driving the observed patterns
-
Quantify how changes in urban vegetation affect bird occupancy in order to design, prioritize, and predict the effects of future urban greening initiatives