Discovering and Applying the Urban Rules of Life to Design Sustainable and Healthy Cities
TLDR
In this article, the authors propose to apply what they have learned to engage residents of the urban biome, and design cities that are more biologically diverse, are provided with more and better ecosystem services, and are more equitable and healthier places to live.Abstract:
The city and its urban biome provides an extreme laboratory for studying fundamental biological questions and developing best practices for sustaining biodiverse and well-functioning ecological communities within anthropogenic built environments. We propose by studying urban organisms, urban biotic communities, the urban biome, and the interactions between the urban biome and peri-urban built and natural environments, we can (1) discover new "rules of life" for the structure, function, interaction, and evolution of organisms; (2) use these discoveries to understand how novel emerging biotic communities affect and are affected by anthropogenic environmental changes in climate and other environmental factors; and (3) apply what we have learned to engage residents of the urban biome, and design cities that are more biologically diverse, are provided with more and better ecosystem services, and are more equitable and healthier places to live. The built environment of the urban biome is a place that reflects history, economics, technology, governance, culture, and values of the human residents; research on and applications of the rules of life in the urban biome can be used by all residents in making choices about the design of the cities where they live. Because inhabitants are directly invested in the environmental quality of their neighborhoods, research conducted in and about the urban environment provides a great opportunity to engage wide and diverse communities of people. Given the opportunity to engage a broad constituency-from basic researchers to teachers, civil engineers, landscape planners, and concerned citizens-studying the translation of the rules of life onto the urban environment will result in an integrative and cross-cutting set of questions and hypotheses, and will foster a dialog among citizens about the focus of urban biome research and its application toward making more equitable, healthy, livable, sustainable, and biodiverse cities.read more
Citations
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Extending Our Scientific Reach in Arboreal Ecosystems for Research and Management
Charles H. Cannon,Colby Borchetta,David L. Anderson,Gabriel Arellano,Martin G. Barker,Guillaume Charron,Jalene M. LaMontagne,Jeannine H. Richards,Ethan Abercrombie,Lindsay F. Banin,Ximena Tagle Casapia,Ximena Tagle Casapia,Xi Chen,Polina Degtjarenko,Jane E. Dell,David Durden,Juan Ernesto Guevara Andino,Rebeca Hernández-Gutiérrez,Andrew Hirons,Chai-Shian Kua,Hughes La Vigne,Maurice Leponce,Jun Ying Lim,Margaret Lowman,Andrew J. Marshall,Sean T. Michaletz,Benjamin B. Normark,Darin S. Penneys,Gerald F. Schneider,Joeri S. Strijk,Bashir Bolaji Tiamiyu,Tara L. E. Trammell,Yalma L. Vargas-Rodriguez,Samantha R. Weintraub-Leff,Alexis Lussier Desbiens,Matthew Spenko +35 more
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Interactive effects of anthropogenic environmental drivers on endocrine responses in wildlife
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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Using transect sampling to determine the distribution of some key non-timber forest products across habitat types near Boumba-Bek National Park, South-east Cameroon.
T. Marlène Ngansop,Elvire Hortense Biyé,F. Evariste Fongnzossie,Preasious F. Forbi,D. Cédric Chimi +4 more
TL;DR: This study demonstrated that habitat fragmentation driven by human activities such as industrial logging and shifting cultivation destroy the forest ecosystems and has a strong influence on the sustainability of the major NTFPs in the locality.
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From diurnal to nocturnal activity: a case study of night-light niche expansion in Agama agama lizards
Nioking Amadi,Luca Luiselli,Luca Luiselli,Robert Belema,Grace Awala Nyiwale,Chimela Wala,Nwaiwu Urubia,Roger Meek +7 more
TL;DR: Results indicate a potential thermoregulatory benefit from using the night-light shift in A. agama populations living in suburban areas, but it is not certain that this benefit is the direct cause of the shift, rather than an additional advantage when foraging.
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