US-IALE 2018

AUTHORS: Joy Peplinski*, Joel S. Brown – University of Illinois at Chicago

ABSTRACT: Squirrels, adored or resented, are a noteworthy part of the campus landscape for most colleges and universities in North America. Faculty experts from 500 institutions of higher learning across the continental United States and Canada contributed data on the presence of species in Family Sciuridae -- tree squirrels, ground squirrels, chipmunks, prairie dogs, flying squirrels, and marmots. Campuses do have squirrels! Thus far only 18 campuses have reported no squirrels; at the other extreme, one university reported up to 14 species. Certain combinations of species are more common than others. Of 76 possible sciurid species, 43 occur on campuses. All 13 genera have at least one representative species on at least one campus. Eastern gray squirrels, Sciurus carolinensis, and Eastern fox squirrels, S. niger, are the most common campus species. The Eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus) is a close 3rd, with the American red squirrel (Tamaisciurus hudsonicus) and woodchuck (Marmota monax) rounding out the top five most common campus species. In general, most sciurid species are under-represented on campuses compared to their general range and therefore potential occurrence. Species absence is on occasion attributable to active (human) control, while in most cases it appears that squirrels are an incidental emergent property of a campus’s habitats, hazards, and opportunities. We consider which landscape and community characteristics of campuses typically accommodate some species while deterring or excluding others. Competitive exclusion between sciurid species is probable in many cases. Species profiles between campuses are analyzed in regards to geographic location, institution funding model, campus size, student body size, elevation, surrounding land use/ecosystem, and historical land use/ecosystem.

AUTHORS: Michael Roberts*, Alexis Smith, Emily Minor – University of Illinois at Chicago

ABSTRACT: Community gardens allow residents to participate in creating green spaces in their city. As urban green spaces these gardens provide resources for native and non-native animal residents of the city. Choices made when designing gardens and their surrounding urban matrix likely impact available resources and thus the biodiversity found in gardens. These choices may impact how many floral resources are available for foraging wild pollinators, either directly via crop choice and density, or indirectly as in the potential for honeybees in artificial hives to compete with native bees. In summer 2017 we surveyed bee activity in 24 Chicago community gardens. We wanted to know how local garden characteristics, the presence of honeybee hives, and the surrounding landscape impact wild bee abundance and foraging. In each garden we identified bees in the field by morpho-species groups and gathered information about floral resources, the garden's size, amount of green space surrounding the garden, the presence of artificial honeybee hives, and other potentially explanatory variables. Using mixed models we estimated the effect of surrounding green space on bee abundance and diversity, and honeybee hives on bees' contact with flowers while visiting plots. Preliminary estimates suggest that while plot level floral resources increase bee abundance, green space surrounding the garden makes bees less responsive to floral density in a plot. We hypothesize that as surrounding foraging opportunities increase, bees are less reliant on garden patches for access to dense resources. The presence of beehives appears to increase foraging in plots with dense floral resources relative to plots with low-density floral patches. This study contributes to our knowledge of how urban green spaces impact bees during a time when bee conservation is of considerable concern.

AUTHORS: Elsa Anderson*, University of Illinois at Chicago; Nakisha Fouch*, Clemson University; Monika Egerer, University of California, Santa Cruz; Melissa Davidson, Arizona State University; Mysha Clarke, Purdue University

ABSTRACT: Community gardens are socially and ecologically embedded spaces where urban residents can cultivate plants and build community. Gardens typically arise when people mobilize to reclaim a vacant space for food production or in response to economic crises, and success is dictated by community engagement and network support. Many cities have thriving or fledgling community gardening programs, which, to different degrees, are sanctioned by stakeholder groups that provide materials, education, and support to gardeners. New York City, NY, Chicago, IL, and Baltimore, MD, are three such cities. While gardens are touted as a “gold-standard” use for urban vacant land, the role of urban gardens in the larger urban matrix is poorly understood. Here, we compare the spatial aggregation of municipally-sanctioned community gardens in NYC, Chicago, and Baltimore, and demonstrate via circuit-theory simulations the degree to which gardens connect green spaces and people in cities. Although NYC and Chicago have similar patterns in garden distribution and size, gardens in NYC are likely much more important as sources of green space for residents than those in Chicago. Baltimore has the fewest gardens, but they are larger and more evenly dispersed, resulting in more equitable access across the urban landscape. By investigating systems of urban gardens at the city-wide scale, we suggest that gardens are ecologically and socially beneficial, but that the degree to which this is true may be easily overstated. Furthermore, planning for future gardens should consider city-wide context and focus on developing gardens in locations that will synergistically improve social and ecological connectivity.

AUTHORS: Naci Dilekli, University of Oklahoma; Qingtao Zhou, Boise State University; Jennifer Koch, University of Oklahoma

ABSTRACT: Urbanization and its impacts on the environment are intensively debated in a wide range of fields. Modeling efforts focusing on urbanization at the local scale are particularly important to analyze and understand the effect of parcel-level local decision making by planners and entrepreneurs. The goal of this work is threefold: Fist, we evaluate historical growth using parcel-level records to understand spatial development patterns in the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area. Second, we use the outcomes of this analysis to parametrize a spatiotemporal simulation model. Third, we use the model to simulate population growth and resulting urbanization in the greater Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area through 2050. Urban sprawl and infill development are two primary means of population growth in urban environments, as discussed in urbanization literature which also deals with themes such as smart growth, compact city, and new urbanism. New development, through sprawl and infill, are often achieved through splitting existing parcels to allow more buildings in a smaller area or develop parts of larger parcels at the urban fringe. We use a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario to understand and visualize how the continuation of historical development trends plays out in the landscape. We also develop two other scenarios based on more dramatic sprawl and infill development. In this paper, we describe our GIS approach to identifying newly developed parcels, introduce the functionality of our spatiotemporal simulation model (based on the ENVISION modeling framework), and discuss the differences between the three urbanization scenarios.

AUTHORS: Hongmei Lu*, Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Shanghai Academy of Landscape Architecture Science and Planning; Audrey L. Mayer, School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, Michigan Technological University

ABSTRACT: Abstract: The function of green infrastructure (GI) in mitigating urban flooding is extensively recognized. In China, GI establishment has been expected to primarily provide recreational space, given the high population density of Chinese cities. The “7.12” rainstorm disaster in Beijing in 2012 put urban flooding issues high on the political agenda. In 2014, the central government initiated the national Sponge City program (2015-2030), which called on dozens of pilot cities to improve both grey and green infrastructure to reduce urban flooding. This is the first time GI was officially identified as an urban stormwater management approach. Two general categories of GI are proposed in this program: sunken ground greenspace (10-20cm lower than the ground level); and green roofs. Most pilot cities have GI targets set by municipal technological guidelines, some even as high as 60% of sunken greenspace (out of all ground-level greenspace) and 50% for green roofs.In the past three years of the Sponge City program, the roof greening rate has not increased by much, and the sunken greenspace has been controversial. Here we examine the gap that has emerged between policy goals and reality, and explore its causes. We find that misunderstandings about how the GI provides stormwater management functions and a lack of trans-disciplinary collaboration among landscape ecologists, landscape architects, and urban managers and planners are the main barriers to meeting Sponge City goals. In order to make GI function efficiently, we suggest more emphasis of correctly identifying the ecological roles of GI, while fostering substantial collaboration to better design urban GI to meet multiple aesthetic and ecological functional goals.

AUTHORS: Celia Hein*, University of Toronto; Ronan Marrec, Université de Picardie Jules Verne; Hossam Abdel Moniem, University of Toronto; Helene Wagner, University of Toronto

ABSTRACT: Bees pollinate large proportions of native plants and agricultural crops, and they are declining in abundance, diversity, and distribution worldwide. Intensive agricultural systems spread geographically and increase habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation. Efficient, accurate studies of pollinator communities and their relative threats are crucial to prevent further losses and aid conservation, preservation, and restoration efforts. The main goal of this project is to test and compare the power of several connectivity models in explaining the spatial genetic structure and connectivity of native bee species in the agricultural zone of Alberta, Canada. We selected six common, generalist bee species: Bombus ternarius, B. rufocinctus, Halictus confusus, H. rubicundus, Andrena lupinorum, and Hylaeus affinis that were sampled and identified by collaborators in a hierarchical sampling design with 12 clusters and 101 sites. We will genotype each species with SNP markers and relate its spatial genetic structure to competing models of panmixia, isolation by distance, species-agnostic structural connectivity, habitat connectivity, and species-specific habitat connectivity, and choose the best model for each species. The species-agnostic structural connectivity model was developed using indices of human footprint and intensity of human use extracted from landcover data at 10 meter resolution provided by the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI). This study will help validate such a coarse-filter approach and discriminate between alternative parameterizations of the contributions of human footprint categories and intensity of human use to landscape resistance and overall connectivity. We hope that through comparisons of connectivity models with varying specificity across a range of bee species with varying life history, we can help bridge the gap between single-species connectivity models and coarse-filter approaches, which are important for decision-making in multifunctional landscapes.

AUTHORS: Jiali Jin*, Research Institute of Forestry & Laboratory of Tree Breeding and Cultivation, State Forestry Administration & Urban Forest Research Centre, State Forestry Administration, Chinese Academy of Forestry; Sarah E. Gergel, Landscape Ecology Lab, Department of Forest and Conservation Science, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia; Yuhao Lu, Integrated Remote Sensing Studio, Department of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia; Nicholas C. Coops, Integrated Remote Sensing Studio, Department of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia; Cheng Wang, Research Institute of Forestry & Laboratory of Tree Breeding and Cultivation, State Forestry Administration & Urban Forest Research Centre, State Forestry Administration, Chinese Academy of Forestry

ABSTRACT: Urbanization is responsible for vegetation loss and landscape fragmentation impacting ecological processes, ecosystem services and human health. As such, urban greenspace which provides significant environmental benefits, is critical for both residents and wildlife in urban areas. Pan-Pacific cities are the fastest urbanizing centres in the world and home to nearly 55% of the global urban population. However, a lack of cross-site comparison limits our understanding of changing greenspace in such cities. To investigate changes in greenspace heterogeneity, we built annual Landsat composites from 1984 to 2012 for 16 cities across seven countries in the pan-Pacific region to answer two primary questions: 1) Do trends in greenspace heterogeneity change over time?; 2) How does greenspace heterogeneity vary along urban gradients? Normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVI) were used to distinguish four classes of greenspace using a thresholding technique. Landscape metrics including Edge Density (ED) and Percentage of Landscape (PLAND) were used to characterize the greenspace attributes. Temporal dynamics of greenspace were assessed using the Mann-Kendall test. Applied generalized additive mixed models (GAMM) helped describe the change trajectory of ED and PLAND and evaluate differences among “greening” and “browning” cities. Gradient analysis of spatial patterns along all radial directions from city centres was used to detect directional changes in greenspace. We also used Principle components analysis (PCA) to find the metrics most useful in comparing the differences between Asian and North American cities. Our results suggest that more than half of pan-Pacific cities became greener as they became wealthier. In contrast to browning cities, most greening cities showed increases in dense vegetation along the urban gradient. Compared to North American cities, dense vegetation in Asian cities increased and became less fragmented. These comparisons can be used to guide future planning for green infrastructure at regional scales.

AUTHORS: Justin White, University of Wisconsin-Parkside

ABSTRACT: Urban habitats in North America can be both resource islands and ecological traps for raptors, but various characteristics of the urban landscape impact individual species differently. The complexity of urban environments make it difficult to identify which variables most impact reproductive efforts. To identify the optimal predictor of Red-tailed Hawk nesting success, I examined eight characteristics of the urban landscape (nightlight, noise level, building height, building footprint, employee density, residential density, an index of overall urban density, and land cover type (agriculture, riparian, impervious, trees, desert shrub)) at four spatial scales for 110 nests in Reno, NV during the 2015-16 breeding seasons. Nests were considered successful if they produced at least one fledgling. Success was calculated using a logistic exposure model with a binomial response and a logistic exposure link function. Models were created with all variable combinations, excluding those that were collinearly related. The final models were chosen based on their Akaike’s Information Criterion scores. The optimal predictor of nesting success was land cover type when measured within a 670-m radius (the nearest-nest midpoint distance) around the nest. Nesting success declined with riparian cover, and increased with desert shrub and agriculture (P<0.05). With large ranges and high dietary generalism these hawks are able to successfully nest atop the complex urban mosaic except when riparian cover dominates their range. Other elements of the urban landscape such as intra- and interspecific competition or localized human actions were not included in this study but may be of critical importance to individual nest success.

AUTHORS: Basil V. Iannone III, Gisele Nighswander, Kayla Hess – School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida

ABSTRACT: Residential landscapes and their associated institutional and economic land uses are the fastest growing land cover type in the United States. These anthropogenic ecosystems alter spatial patterns of biodiversity and species movement through a number of mechanisms, including habitat fragmentation and the creation of designer and engineered ecosystems, such as ornamental gardens and stormwater ponds. Furthermore, while urban and urbanizing areas tend to be ecologically homogeneous relative to one another across large spatial scales, ecological processes, particularly those occurring at smaller spatial scales, within a given urban or residential landscape can be very heterogeneous. This poster will highlight multiple investigations being conducted by the Residential Landscape Ecology Lab at the University of Florida that contribute to the long-term goal of quantifying spatial patterns and drivers of ecological processes within and surrounding residential landscapes. The aims of these projects are: (1) to mitigate the negative impacts of expanding residential landscapes and (2) to inform the design of future residential landscapes so that they exhibit greater levels of ecological functionality. Ongoing projects include quantifying how landscaping practices aimed at reducing irrigation and fertilizer needs impact hydrological connectivity, water quality, and plant communities in adjacent wetlands; determining the degree to which ornamental plantings in stormwater pond networks benefit downstream water quality; and the effects of alpha and beta diversity, structural complexity, and landscape context of ornamental gardens on top-down and bottom-up regulation of herbivorous arthropod pests. In addition, we are pursuing research aimed at quantifying the impacts of landscaping plant choices and stormwater ponds on patterns of plant invasion across multiple spatial scales and quantifying spatial heterogeneity in ecosystem services that benefit homeowners (e.g., cooling, soil fertility, and arthropod pest control) and the spatial thresholds at which these services become homogeneous.

AUTHORS: Lindsay E. Hansen, University of California Berkeley; Falk Huettmann, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks; Andy Baltensperger*, National Park Service

ABSTRACT: Birds are known to be excellent indicators of environmental health. In Nepal, 15% of the naturally occurring bird species are nationally threatened due to human-caused habitat alteration, largely due to urbanization. However, little research is available providing species distribution models and richness/evenness calculations for birds living in urban spaces. A large majority of Nepali people follow Hindu or Buddhist traditions. Culturally they see birds and other animals as spiritually divine and deserving respect and welcoming. Therefore it is common for shop owners to encourage birds to visit shops in the mornings via the spreading of bird seed, and it is customary to leave alone any nest birds have built inside of shops, restaurants and homes. In 2016 and 2017 we conducted a study of avian species roosting and nesting in and around shops and restaurants in urban centers of Nepal. This study created the first database of bird abundance and bird nesting habits in urban spaces within Nepal to inform and advise future management and research decisions within the country. Georeferenced avian point counts, vegetation/urbanization assessments, and nest counts were conducted within Kathmandu and Pokhara, and smaller mountain villages in Nepal. This was done to investigate a gradient of urbanization that determines the level of urbanization preferred by different functional groups of birds, as well as to determine the likelihood a bird nest would be found in a shop given the urbanization gradient of the shop and religious background of the shop owner. Data mining and machine learning algorithms were used to model, predict and extrapolate the effect of religious affiliation and urban predictors on bird nest acceptance, distribution, population spread and nesting habits of avian species. This study will develop a quantitative assessment of urban species distribution throughout Nepali cities and village centers.

AUTHORS: Maoning Yuan*, Jian Peng – Peking University

ABSTRACT: City diseases caused by rapid urbanization, as well as extreme weather and subsequent disasters caused by climate change, are the main causes of the current impact on urban security. And in coastal cities, waterlogging caused by heavy rain is the most frequent disaster. Urban resilience is an ability of the resistance, absorption, adaptation and recovery of city when it is disturbed. It is necessary to evaluate the resilience level of city, especially for specific disasters, which is of great practical significance and far-reaching strategic significance. First of all, this paper marshals the concept of urban resilience, discriminates the difference of synonyms, and on the basis, the index system to evaluate the level of resilience based on waterlogging is established. Then, the annual changes of Shenzhen's resilience level in the past 2005-2016 years are evaluated by using the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the SPSS software. The result shows that the resilience level of Shenzhen has little fluctuation in the research period, but it shows an overall upward trend. And the improvement of its resilience depends primarily on infrastructure that can resist waterlogging.