Chasing Bats and Tracking Rats: Urban Ecology, Community Science, and How We Share Our Cities
Have you ever wondered how far rats scurrying out of dumpsters might travel in the city Or how many bird species are in your local park What about the ways that plants can fight climate change in urban areas From bats to bees and microplastics to trees this book will introduce you to urban ecologists who answer questions like these ones And because science requires teamwork all of the urban ecologists you’ll meet are people that I know and have worked with You’ll also learn about the wacky ways we do our science in urban environments environments like riding a science bike Cities are complicated and busy places filled with lots of different challenges to doing research As urban ecologists we have to come up with creative approaches to get our data and build cool tools to help answer our questions Some of my urban ecologist friends even get everyday people like you to help them collect their data We want to help you understand why nature is so important in our cities Humans get a lot of benefits or ecosystem services from nature but we also have a responsibility to keep our environments healthy and protect the species living in them We also want you to explore your own local biodiversity so keep an eye out for urban ecology challenges at the end of each chapter Who knows while you’re out adventuring in your neighborhood you might even meet one of us or your own friendly neighborhood urban ecologist Urban Ecology Challenge Each scientist in this book has created a challenge just for you These challenges will get you thinking like an urban ecologist and will show you how to be a protector of your local biodiversity Before you start make sure you have a small notebook and pencil No explorer adventurer or scientist goes anywhere without their trusty field notebook Look but don’t touch and please don’t feed Throughout this book you’re going to hear stories from scientists who catch and handle wildlife for a living These scientists me included have had years of training and wear special equipment to keep them and the animals they handle safe When you go out to enjoy the species in your neighborhood please don’t try to touch any of the animals you meet And don’t share your food with them Although lots of animals beg for human treats this food can make them sick later 2
Talk like an urban ecologist Key Terms Here are a few special terms we urban ecologists use in our work terms that will pop up in many chapters in this book If you’re reading and aren’t sure what a word means flip back to this page Urban Also known as cities urban areas are places where lots of people live and work together Suburban As you move toward the outskirts of cities homes and people usually become more spread out These are called suburban areas Rural Outside of cities people may live in small groups surrounded by farmland and natural areas These are rural communities Wilderness These are natural areas that haven’t been changed by humans or where human activity is minimal Ecosystem services The benefits humans receive from natural environments and the species inhabiting them For example animals and insects pollinate our crops trees and other plants provide building materials not to mention the air we breathe and wetlands help to filter and purify water key terms 3
Hypothesis Science is all about asking questions about the way the world works A hypothesis is a well thought out answer to a question we have asked but haven’t yet tested with an experiment or through observation To come up with hypotheses we often need to do research to get enough information to make a statement about what we think will happen Let’s say we want to know if plants grow larger when they have access to sunlight If we did some research we would find out that plants use the sun’s energy to produce their food through photosynthesis Based on this we could hypothesize that if a plant is given no light it won’t grow Experiment Once we have asked a question and come up with a hypothesis we can design an experiment to test it To find out if sunlight makes plants grow we could design an experiment with two plants on a windowsill We could cover one plant with a box so it gets no light and leave the other uncovered Since we are only interested in the effect of sunlight we would want to make sure that nothing else differs between our plants This means we’d have to use the same species of plant give them the same amount of water at the same time and keep them at the same temperature Observation While experiments are an important part of science most of the urban ecologists you’ll meet in this book are trying to make observations about nature in cities but many urban ecologists do experiments too Observation means watching the natural world to understand patterns and see what might change over time With observational science we don’t manipulate or change anything like we would with an experiment For example if we wanted to know the height of the average middle school student living in Fredericton New Brunswick in Canada we couldn’t answer this question by doing an experiment Instead we would need to go out and make some observations about Fredericton’s middle schoolers 4
Sampling When scientists try to make observations about patterns in the world we can’t always measure everything Instead we collect information from a smaller part of a population landscape or natural process that we want to measure This is called sampling It would be very hard and take a lot of time to measure the height of every single sixth grader in Fredericton so we might choose to measure the heights of children in classrooms from three different schools across the city This sample of sixth graders should give us an idea of the overall pattern of heights in all of Fredericton Data Data is all the information we collect and record while sampling or conducting an experiment With our plant experiment our data might be daily measurements of the height of each plant With our sixth graders it would be measurements of each kid’s height A dataset is a collection of all the data that comes from an experiment or project Bias Bias is a preference for one thing group or location over others Sometimes datasets can be biased toward or contain only information on certain groups of people or things because we aren’t careful with how we design our experiments or sampling When our experiments or observations are biased we can miss important pieces of information that will affect the answers to the questions we ask If we measured the heights of only sixth grade students in Fredericton our sample would be biased toward sixth graders We wouldn’t be able to use our data to say something about the heights of all middle school students in the city because we wouldn’t have height information for the seventh and eighth grade students also at the school To avoid bias we’d want to measure students from all grades from several middle schools in different neighborhoods so that our sample is representative of the whole population key terms 5
