We run simulations that rule out the possibility that urban areas act merely as “ecological traps” where populations cannot persist without immigration. Under low anthropogenic mortality, invaded urban populations are self-sustaining.

Urban areas seem to act as an ecological filter for snakes:
🚗 Traffic is an effective barrier for snakes to colonize urban areas, 👩‍👩‍👧‍👦 humans actively detect and remove snakes more often, while urban microhabitats 🏡 (rock walls, gardens, parks) provide favorable conditions for Ibiza wall lizards.

To study the persistence of urban lizard populations, we surveyed 144 urban and peri-urban sites across the island. Although invasive snakes strongly reduce lizard abundance, lizards persist well in intensively urbanized long-invaded areas

Urbanization enhances biodiversity loss. Yet sometimes cities may *paradoxically* shelter species threatened by other components of global change

We studied if urban areas are sheltering an endangered iconic lizard 🦎 from a rapidly spreading predator 🐍 in Ibiza👇

📸G. Casbas

doi.org/10.1016/j.ge...

@annatraveset.bsky.social & I are excited to co-organize this symposium @ #ESEB congress in Barcelona:

"Aliens among us: ecological drivers, evolutionary dynamics, and rapid ecosystem reshaping by biological Invasions"

Abstract submission deadline: April 25th