2016 AAAS Annual Meeting (February 11-15, 2016)

February 10 - 15, 2016

Global Urban Ecology Research: Addressing Novelty, Equity, and Uncertainty

With more than half of the world population living in urban or urbanizing environments, interdisciplinary urban ecology aims to ensure the long-term health and well-being of urban ecosystems, which encompass humans, biota, and biophysical processes. Global urbanization and climate change are contributing to unprecedented rates of change in cities. As human actions alter landscapes, new species assemblages are formed, either intentionally or unintentionally. Urban ecology must address concerns about novel ecosystems and resource inequity in the world’s rapidly changing urban settings, and develop local strategies to create and maintain healthy urban ecosystems that connect to the globally integrated system of human-biophysical patterns and processes. Panelists address recent progress in research and pedagogy toward conceptualizing and implementing innovative, applied approaches to creating healthy, thriving environments for multiple species; how urban systems reconceptualize temporal and spatial scale in terms of resource flows, biodiversity, and climate change; what novel feedbacks and emergent dynamics exist in cities; and what major concerns about equity are yet to be addressed. Lastly, panelists will discuss how novelty, equity, and uncertainty about the future can strengthen training for urban ecology practitioners, scientists, and policymakers.