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Urban Ecosystems Research Joins Mainstream Ecology
Citation:
MAYER, P. Urban Ecosystems Research Joins Mainstream Ecology. NATURE. Macmillan Publishers Ltd., London, Uk, 467(7312):153, (2010).
Impact/Purpose:
A response to a recent journal op-ed piece.
Description:
We appreciate the heightened awareness that Zoë Corbyn’s article brings about the ostensible dearth of urban ecology studies and we laud the efforts of Martin, Ellis, and Blossey to quantify urban research efforts (“Ecologists shun the urban jungle”, online 16 July 2010; http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100716/full/news.2010.359.html). However, ecologists have hardly been slackers at trying to fill a recognized void in urban ecological research, and it is inaccurate to represent ecologists as actively avoiding studying human-altered environments. Indeed, in 1997, the NSF Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program created two urban research sites, one in Baltimore (BES LTER) and one in Phoenix (CAP LTER), and more recently, funded the Urban Long Term Research Area Exploratory Awards (ULTRA EX), a joint effort with the US Forest Service to expand the knowledge of urban natural resource and human interactions. Together, these programs attest to a coordinated and productive effort to incorporate urban research into the mainstream of ecology. Journals devoted to urban research (Urban Ecology, Urban Ecosystems), special journal issues (e.g., “Cities”, 8 Feb 2008, Science), and recent books (e.g., Urban Herpetology, Urban Carnivores, Urban Regions, Advances in Urban Ecology) suggest that urban ecology is a “hot topic.” Growing membership in the Urban Ecosystem Ecology section of the Ecological Society of America (ESA; now 12th largest of 19 sections) and 287 urban-related events or presentations at this year’s ESA annual meeting in Pittsburgh (compared to 1 “urban” presentation in 1991) are indicative of the increasing interest by ecologists in urban environments. While the overall number of published urban studies may still be relatively small, the growth rate is rapid. A previous review, just a decade ago, showed that only 1 in 246 (0.4%) papers published in nine leading ecology journals from 1993-1998 dealt with cities or urban species (Collins et al. 2000). Martin, Ellis, and Blossey (http://eco.confex.com/eco/2010/techprogram/P25201.HTM) found that 2.5% of studies published in ten top ecology journals in the last 5 years were devoted to urban/suburban systems, results that suggest remarkable focus on environments that weren’t even recognized as ecosystems until recently. Ecologists still need to study the full range of pristine to altered systems to understand the impacts of human activities. A clear understanding of urban environments will take time and must develop in this comparative context. We encourage still more urban ecology research but contend that many ecologists are already up to the challenge.
