What should grow in a vacant lot?

Baltimore biologist Chris Swan says  “I have a PhD in biology, not human relations”. He is referring  to how neighbors of his vacant lot study plots react to his numerous wildflower seedings across West Baltimore. Chris is trying to understand which species do best on abandoned property soil types. You can read about more of this research at:
https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/02/what-should-grow-in-a-vacant-lot/552671/

One's trash is another's septic buffet

Researchers at Yale and Portland State Universities conducted a study of the effects of fertilizers on ponds in residential areas. They found that human waste from septic systems were not only contributing nitrogen to the ponds, but that pond organisms were primarily feeding from it. Max Lambert, one of the paper's co-authors stated "“Our study highlights that, by choosing to live in and landscape particular places, human neighborhoods are creating fundamentally unique ecosystems by changing how water and food move around, and even what kind of food is available. Suburban animals behave, look, and function differently because of this”

More on this story at Yale News at https://news.yale.edu/2017/12/11/study-suburban-ponds-are-septic-buffet

Wait, wait....don't clean that street gutter!

“In most cities, streets are designed for collecting and transporting dirt, litter, debris, storm water and other wastes as a municipal sanitation system. Microbial mats can develop on street surfaces and form microbial communities that have never been described. Here, we performed the first molecular inventory of the street gutter-associated eukaryotes across the entire French capital of Paris and the non-potable waters sources. We found that the 5782 OTUs (operational taxonomic units) present in the street gutters which are dominated by diatoms (photoautotrophs), fungi (heterotrophs), Alveolata and Rhizaria, includes parasites, consumers of phototrophs and epibionts that may regulate the dynamics of gutter mat microbial communities. Network analyses demonstrated that street microbiome present many species restricted to gutters, and an overlapping composition between the water sources used for street cleaning (for example, intra-urban aquatic networks and the associated rivers) and the gutters. We propose that street gutters, which can cover a significant surface area of cities worldwide, potentially have important ecological roles in the remediation of pollutants or downstream wastewater treatments, might also be a niche for growth and dissemination of putative parasite and pathogens.”

From: Aquatic urban ecology at the scale of a capital: community structure and interactions in street gutters

by Vincent Hervé, Boris Leroy, Albert Da Silva Pires & Pascal Jean Lopez

The ISME Journal 

doi:10.1038/ismej.2017.166

Urban Bird Feeders Dominated by a Few Species and Individuals

“Our study highlights that individual and species-specific differences in feeder use are present within feeder-visiting bird communities, importantly demonstrating this across seasons within an urban system. These intraspecific and interspecific asymmetries support the likelihood of competitive interactions operating to regulate access to food, and suggest that the effects of supplementary feeding are unlikely to be equivalent across all birds within communities of feeder visitors. In New Zealand resource dominance by introduced species is particularly important, with negative outcomes for native species conservation in cities possible. Individual differences in feeder use observed here are likely to affect the population-level impacts of bird feeding, and consequently should be considered in future studies of garden bird feeding.”

"Urban Bird Feeders Dominated by a Few Species and Individuals"

Josie A. Galbraith, Darryl N. Jones, Jacqueline R. Beggs, Katharina Parry and Margaret C. Stanley

Front. Ecol. Evol., 02 August 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2017.00081

Good urban ecology reference book

Urban shrapnel: spatial distribution of non-productive space

Abstract:

“Urbanisation is characterised by cycles of activation and obsolescence leaving in their wake an abundance of non-productive space (NPS). Expanding cities report more vacant land than do fixed cities, which report higher structural abandonment. If left untreated, existing NPS can spread to surrounding properties. Using Fort Worth, TX, USA as a case site, this research explores the spatial distribution of NPS using Geographical Information Systems spatial analyses. Directional distributions, time series analyses, spatial assessments using 5-mile buffer increments and weighted suitability models were combined to determine if urban core fragmentation is occurring, despite population and economic growth. Findings indicate that peripheral NPS area decreased but these spaces were redistributed into the urban core. Parcel size and regeneration potential in the city centre also decreased. This has resulted in a fragmented urban core characterised by disconnected and small/irregularly shaped parcels of NPS which are difficult to regenerate—an urban shrapnel.”

Authors: Galen Newman ORCID Icon & Boah Kim

Published through Landscape Research, Journal; Pages 699-715 | Published online: 20 Aug 2017

Volume 42, 2017 - Issue 7: Shrinking Cities: Rethinking landscape in depopulating urban contexts

Available at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01426397.2017.1363877

Felder Rushing's driveway 'crack garden'