Desert Museum Trip Saturday Nov 4 th 10 AM COS funds for admission - - PDF document

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Desert Museum Trip

• Saturday Nov 4th 10 AM
• COS funds for admission

and lunch

• w/ TRAD: Origins of Human

Diversity Tuesdays 7PM (Oct 17) UA Centennial Hall http://cos.arizona.edu/climate/

• I. Justification and Background
• II. Urban Ecology Studies:
• A. Ecology in the City
• B. Ecology of the City

Urban Ecology

Urban Ecology is not necessarily a new thing……

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Ecology and the Role of Humans

Tansley 1935 “We cannot confine ourselves to the so called ’natural’ entities and ignore the processes and expressions of vegetation now so abundantly provided by man.” Odum 1969 “….an ecology that considers humans as a part of, not apart from, nature” Vitousek 1997 “Most aspects of the structure and functioning of the earth’s ecosystems cannot be understood without accounting for the strong, often dominant influence of humanity”

• Ecosystem Ecology – humans are components of

ecosystems

• Conservation Biology – focus in places where

people live and work

• Environmental Ethics – what is wild? blindspot to

humans in envi.philosophy

Recent Conceptual Advances United States Urban Population

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 1980 2025 YEAR Population Urban Non-urban from United Nations, 1996

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Urban areas impact the environment through: 1) Alterations in hydrology 2) Inputs of pollutants 3) Modification of local climate 4) Landscape fragmentation 5) Habitat transformation 6) Species introductions

Approaches to Urban Ecology: Ecology in the City

Ecological structure and function of habitats or organisms in the city Focus on the physical environment, soils, plants and vegetation, and animals and wildlife

Tucson Bird Count Hummingbird Project

• Lower native bird diversity
• Overall diversity increases
• A few natives do well in town (Thrasher,

WW Dove)

• Many natives are rarely found in town

www.tucsonbirds.org http://hummingbirds.arizona.edu/

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Cultural Coevolution Cultural Coevolution

Genes Culture Genes Culture Genes Culture Genes Culture

Environment Humans

Selection Selection

Time

Inheritance Inheritance (Nihei and Higuchi 2001)

Foraging Innovations and Human Behavior

City Core Suburbs Rural Lands

The Gradient Paradigm

• environmental variation is ordered in space
• spatial environmental patterns govern the structure and function of ecological

systems

A G

A B C D E F G Moisture

Urban geography

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8 km

Asheville Nat’l Forest

= Suburban Site 8 km

Asheville

= Rural Site = Urban Site

Nematodes

Leaf Litter Decomposition

Nutrient Cycling

N-Mineralization

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Slower Decomp Faster N-Min (A) Aspects of Urbanization (B) Biotic and Environmental Effects (C) Ecosystem Effects Drier Soil Warmer Soil Less SOM Increased Density Shift in Nematode Community

Implications

Ecosystem ‘remnants’ don’t necessarily function the same as non-urban counterparts Urbanization reduces soil quality ecosystem health/sustainability ?

Population Frequency of United States Cities

100 200 300 400 500 600 700 10 - 24 25 - 49 50 - 99 100 - 199 200 - 399 400 - 799 800 - 1599 1600 - 3199 3200 - 6399 6400 - 12799 City Size Class (x 1000 people) Frequency New York Baltimore

Asheville

1 2 3 4 5 6

NYC BALT Asheville

2 4 6 8 10 12 14

NYC BALT Asheville

20 40 60 80 100

NYC BALT Asheville

Rural Urban

Urban Environments Differ

pH Annual Temperature Soil Organic Matter

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# New York Phoenix Baltimore Asheville

City Size City Size Ecosystem Health Ecosystem Health Environmental Impact Environmental Impact

Tucson

Size Density Economy Small Large Compact

Information

Industrial Sprawling

Comparative Urban Ecology

Approaches to Urban Ecology: Ecology of the City

Systems oriented approaches to urban ecology Focus on dynamics of urban ecosystems, fluxes and flows, interactions

Urban Nutrient Balance, Bangkok

Food per capita Atmospheric Deposition

• Local Production

Total Food Supply Total nutrient inflow + Feed & fertilizer River Collected Waste Accumulation

Population & Income Area

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Ecological Footprints (Rees and Wackernagel 1996)

Bear Brook, NH

1 m 0.31 m

Vancouver, BC Productive land area = 20,000 km2 City = 114 km2

The City as an Ecosystem: LTER Approach

The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network (http://www.lternet.edu) Central Arizona-Phoenix (CAP) LTER (http://caplter.asu.edu) Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) LTER (http://www.beslter.org/)

Long-term: 200 point survey

Data:

• Photos
• Weather
• Built envt
• Cover
• Soil
• Vegetation
• Birds and bugs
• Human activity

surveys

CAP LTER – data mining

Construction of an ecosystem N budget 1) 7-8x higher inputs 2) 90% of these are human mediated

Desert Ecosystem CAP Ecosystem

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Trends in air temperature in CAP and Baltimore

Baltimore Ecosystem: Peak in 1950’s Days warmer in city CAP Ecosystem: Steady increase since 1950 Days can be cooler in city

Phoenix – Heat Island

Impacts of a warm Phoenix (~3.1 ºC since 1950)

• Misery hours

– 30 deaths/y (13x national average) – Irritability, aggression (~7% of violent crimes in 1998!)

• Heating and cooling

– 16-30 % rise in energy consumption

• Longer arthropod ‘thermal window’

– More disease vectors? Ag pests?

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Human Ecosystem Model for Urban Ecosystems