What is the most intelligent animal you can think of? Species that likely come to mind are perhaps apes, cetaceans, or elephants. However, in spite of their intelligence, most of the species from t…

When I was younger, I remember thinking to myself: “This tree is losing its skin, is it dying?” I believe I can’t be the only child that thought this when first looking at a London plane. Little di…

When thinking about a city at night, chances are that you include some twinkling streetlights in your mental image. Billboards, streetlamps, and neon signs are no novel presence to city dwellers. Thes...

The harsh, brutal urban environment is increasing. In Europe, the Netherlands ranks as one of the countries with the lowest forest cover (10%), with wooden forests being replaced by concrete jungles. ...

Urban wildlife knows more about us than we think. Birds and mammals are able to read our behaviour and recognize individual humans.

The eastern chipmunk is well adapted to the urban environment. They spend less time foraging and their reproductive succes is better.

“Dad, what are those birds? I’ve never seen them before” I remember asking my dad when I was younger. We were outside having a barbecue and for the first time, I noticed several green birds flying ove...

Microorganisms are essential members of soil ecosystems, and they form complex, interactive networks [4] including communications and interactions with each other that are similar to human communities...

The annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) is here! From January 3-7 biologists will convene in Atlanta, Georgia to share the latest and greatest from a broad range of research areas. Urban evolution talks have a strong showing at the meeting this year, and we would like to hear about all of the urban talks and posters if possible so that those of us not attending the meeting can follow along.

City lights, moonlit nights: examining bat responses to urbanization and lunar cycles Claysson de Aguiar Silva & Ludmilla M. S. Aguiar  Abstract Urbanization is one of the most abrupt mechanisms of land use change. This process can generate significant impacts on biodiversity, and its effects on bat activity patterns need further exploration due to the importance of these animals in controlling insect populations and maintaining ecological balance.

Body size and survival of urban and rural populations of a common wolf spider are not influenced by lifelong exposure to lead pollution Lucy Guarnieri, Leo Taylor, P. Larry Phelan & Mary Margaret Gardiner  Abstract Heavy metal pollution is pervasive in urban soils, and it can negatively impact the fitness of arthropods. Arthropod populations can evolve to become more tolerant or resistant to metals, but the mechanisms of these processes are understudied.

Artificial light at night (ALAN) is one of the most significant environmental changes of the past century.1 In 2020, there were approximately 361 million streetlights globally,2 and ALAN continues to increase at an alarming rate of 7%-10% per year.3 But how does this rapid expansion affect wildlife, particularly nocturnal creatures like bats? Research suggests that ALAN poses considerable challenges for bats, whose nocturnal behaviors are finaly tuned to natural light cycles.

Coastal cities in Europe are swarmed with gulls, to the annoyance of many of those cities’ inhabitants. Gulls (Larus spp.) are naturally cliff-nesting species, but are able to thrive in urban areas because of the high food availability, the suitable climate, the similarity of nest substrate, lesser risk of predation and the presence of conspecifics like other gulls (Mainwaring et al., 2014).

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