Although I wasn’t able to attend the meeting, the International Urban Wildlife Conference looks like it was a great success and I have enjoyed following along thanks to our great contributors and the hard work of co-editor Elizabeth Carlen. Here are some highlights:
We Have Stickers!
I drew these to pass out at the meeting and (from what I hear) people loved them. If you got one, show us some love on Twitter by sharing a pic of where you put your new LITC sticker! If you missed out, don’t worry, you will have another chance to get stickers next week at the annual Evolution meeting!
We Blogged. A Lot.
Our contributors generated a whopping 12 blog posts over the past week covering a wide range of talks. A huge thanks to everyone that contributed these great posts. Check them out if you missed them.
A lot of great urban research is going on in a pretty wide range of taxa:
- Urban bat diversity and habitat use
- Urban deer in upstate New York
- Garden bee communities
- Urban hawks and owls nesting activity and behavior
- Arthropod and bird abundances in backyards and bird diversity and abundance across different types of urban land uses
- Urban wildlife corridors in Colorodo mammals and Los Angeles carnivores
There were also quite a few talks bridging disciplines and getting into the human side of urban evolutionary study. In the opening plenary, Dr. Chris Schell, Deeohn Ferris, and Bob Sallaniger talked about interactions with the communities we work in and the importance of community engagement and equity. This was followed by a series of talks on inclusive urban ecosystems, in which presenters told us about urban pigeons and community engagement, involving the public in identifying animals from camera traps, conducting research on private property, urban carnivore-human interactions, and environmental justice. In another session, presenters discussed ways to involve community members through community science initiatives such as iNaturalist, CatTracker, and community contributed photos of otters. And contributor Aaron Anderson presented what sound like fascinating work on both bee diversity in gardens AND gardener perceptions of different pollinator-attracting plants. Finally, Dr. Tara Cornelisse, shared her work with school children in which she focuses on increasing knowledge and appreciation of these often maligned critters.
Or More Succinctly
A wordcloud summary of all the posts:
Want More?
Well good, because we’re about to do this all over again next week when Evolution 2019 kicks off in Providence, Rhode Island. If you are attending that meeting and would like to contribute to the blog, let us know!
- New Lit Alert: Urban environment determines population genetics in the green toad, Bufotes viridis - September 11, 2023
- Contribute to the New York Canid Project! - July 21, 2023
- Parallel Urban Adaptation from Phenotype to Genotype in Anolis Lizards - January 19, 2023