Urban Biodiversity and Landscape Ecology: Patterns, Processes and Planning

Effective planning for biodiversity in cities and towns is increasingly important as urban areas and their human populations grow, both to achieve conservation goals and because ecological communities support services on which humans depend. Landscape ecology provides important frameworks for understanding and conserving urban biodiversity both within cities and considering whole cities in their regional context, and has played an important role in the development of a substantial and expanding body of knowledge about urban landscapes and communities. Characteristics of the whole city including size, overall amount of green space, age and regional context are important considerations for understanding and planning for biotic assemblages at the scale of entire cities, but have received relatively little research attention. Studies of biodiversity within cities are more abundant and show that longstanding principles regarding how patch size, configuration and composition influence biodiversity apply to urban areas as they do in other habitats. However, the fine spatial scales at which urban areas are fragmented and the altered temporal dynamics compared to non-urban areas indicate a need to apply hierarchical multi-scalar landscape ecology models to urban environments. Transferring results from landscape-scale urban biodiversity research into planning remains challenging, not least because of the requirements for urban green space to provide multiple functions. An increasing array of tools is available to meet this challenge and increasingly requires ecologists to work with planners to address biodiversity challenges. Biodiversity conservation and enhancement is just one strand in urban planning, but is increasingly important in a rapidly urbanising world

Is the health of people living in rural areas different from those in cities? Evidence from routine data linked with the Scottish Health Survey

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To examine the association between rurality and health in Scotland, after adjusting for differences in individual and practice characteristics.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Design: Mortality and hospital record data linked to two cross sectional health surveys. Setting: Respondents in the community-based 1995 and 1998 Scottish Health Survey who consented to record-linkage follow-up. Main outcome measures: Hypertension, all-cause premature mortality, total hospital stays and admissions due to coronary heart disease (CHD).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Older age and lower social class were strongly associated with an increased risk of each of the four health outcomes measured. After adjustment for individual and practice characteristics, no consistent pattern of better or poorer health in people living in rural areas was found, compared to primary cities. However, individuals living in remote small towns had a lower risk of a hospital admission for CHD and those in very remote rural had lower mortality, both compared with those living in primary cities.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study has shown how linked data can be used to explore the possible influence of area of residence on health. We were unable to find a consistent pattern that people living in rural areas have materially different health to that of those living in primary cities. Instead, we found stronger relationships between compositional determinants (age, gender and socio-economic status) and health than contextual factors (including rurality).</p

Nest management increases pollinator density in passion fruit orchards

The yields of yellow passion fruit are vulnerable to pollinator decline because the crop is strictly self-incompatible. Nectar foraging carpenter bees are the main pollinators of this crop, whereas honeybees and stingless bees take pollen and nectar without pollination, and can be classified as "thieves". In many cropping areas, the density of effective pollinators is very low and precludes optimal yield. We investigated, over a period of 6 months, whether the provision of unoccupied and occupied carpenter bee nests could lead to (a) an increase in crop visitation by carpenter bees and (b) a decrease in visitation by thieves. We found that introduction of occupied nests can influence visitation by both carpenter bees and thieves in the expected ways, while the sole provision of unoccupied nests did not achieve this. Our study can be regarded as an important step for increasing pollinators' population in yellow passion fruit orchards using trap-nests as nesting substrate. © 2013 INRA, DIB and Springer-Verlag France.Camila N. Junqueira, Marcela Yamamoto, Paulo E. Oliveira, Katja Hogendoorn, Solange C. August