TY - JOUR
T1 - Evolution and future of urban ecological science
T2 - ecology in, of, and for the city
AU - Pickett, Steward T.A.
AU - Cadenasso, Mary L.
AU - Childers, Daniel
AU - Mcdonnell, Mark J.
AU - Zhou, Weiqi
N1 - Funding Information:
Paradigms in science are a rich source of insight. We employ the Kuhnian local approach to paradigms (Devlin and Bokulich 2015) as ideal poles of contrast in order to delimit the conceptual space in which urban ecological research has developed. The paradigms have several specific implications. Their initial use was to suggest the novelty of the fledgling urban Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) programs funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1997 in Baltimore and Phoenix. The phrase “ecology of the city” was used to suggest the new things that these two urban LTER programs had to add to ecological theories and approaches to understand cities as spatially complex and extensive social–ecological systems. In part, this was required to overcome the skepticism about the value of research in urban areas that was common among American ecologists at the time. In spite of the arguments of Stearns and Montag (1974), the example of Boyden et al. (1981), and the explorations of the urban–rural gradient in the New York metropolitan area (McDonnell et al. 1997, McDonnell and Hahs 2008, Pouyat et al. 2009), many ecological colleagues working outside of urban areas doubted the feasibility or significance of urban ecology to the science as a whole. The founding proposals for the NSF-funded urban LTER programs sought to link with mainstream ecological ideas in order to overcome such skepticism. In the case of Baltimore, an ecology of the cities paradigm was operationalized by testing the applicability of the watershed approach to a metropolitan area. The watershed concept had proven to be a powerful approach in non-urban systems (Groffman et al. 2003), and the scope of watersheds was easily adapted to inclusive social–ecological research. Since that time, the ecology of the city has become a standard way to describe the range of urban ecological research (Gaston 2010, Adler and Tanner 2013, Tanner et al. 2014, Douglas and James 2015). For example, when the NSF and the USDA Forest Service jointly funded exploratory Urban Long-Term Research Areas (ULTRA-Ex), an ecology of the city approach was clear in the request for proposals.
Funding Information:
Support was provided by the National Science Foundation through the Urban Sustainability Research Coordination Network (Grant No. 1140070), the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Program (Grant No. 1026865), and the Baltimore Ecosystem Study Long-Term Ecological Research Program (Grant No. 1027188). MJM was supported by the Baker Foundation. STAP thanks the Chinese Academy of Sciences for a Visiting Professorship for International Scientists in 2014, and a Visiting Guest Professorship at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, during which the key portions of this paper were developed. The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, © 2016 Pickett et al.
PY - 2016/7/1
Y1 - 2016/7/1
N2 - The contrast between ecology in cities and ecology of cities has emphasized the increasing scope of urban ecosystem research. Ecology in focuses on terrestrial and aquatic patches within cities, suburbs, and exurbs as analogs of non‐urban habitats. Urban fabric outside analog patches is considered to be inhospitable matrix. Ecology of the city differs from ecology in by treating entire urban mosaics as social–ecological systems. Ecology of urban ecosystems incorporates biological, social, and built components. Originally posed as a metaphor to visualize disciplinary evolution, this paper suggests that the contrast has conceptual, empirical, and methodological contents. That is, the contrast constitutes a disciplinary or “local” paradigm shift. The paradigm change between ecology in and ecology of represents increased complexity, moving from focus on biotic communities to holistic social–ecological systems. A third paradigm, ecology for the city, has emerged due to concern for urban sustainability. While ecology for includes the knowledge generated by both ecology in and ecology of, it considers researchers as a part of the system, and acknowledges that they may help envision and advance the social goals of urban sustainability. Using urban heterogeneity as a key urban feature, the three paradigms are shown to contrast in five important ways: disciplinary focus, the relevant theory of spatial heterogeneity, the technology for representing spatial structure, the resulting classification of urban mosaics, and the nature of application to sustainability. Ecology for the city encourages ecologists to engage with other specialists and urban dwellers to shape a more sustainable urban future.
AB - The contrast between ecology in cities and ecology of cities has emphasized the increasing scope of urban ecosystem research. Ecology in focuses on terrestrial and aquatic patches within cities, suburbs, and exurbs as analogs of non‐urban habitats. Urban fabric outside analog patches is considered to be inhospitable matrix. Ecology of the city differs from ecology in by treating entire urban mosaics as social–ecological systems. Ecology of urban ecosystems incorporates biological, social, and built components. Originally posed as a metaphor to visualize disciplinary evolution, this paper suggests that the contrast has conceptual, empirical, and methodological contents. That is, the contrast constitutes a disciplinary or “local” paradigm shift. The paradigm change between ecology in and ecology of represents increased complexity, moving from focus on biotic communities to holistic social–ecological systems. A third paradigm, ecology for the city, has emerged due to concern for urban sustainability. While ecology for includes the knowledge generated by both ecology in and ecology of, it considers researchers as a part of the system, and acknowledges that they may help envision and advance the social goals of urban sustainability. Using urban heterogeneity as a key urban feature, the three paradigms are shown to contrast in five important ways: disciplinary focus, the relevant theory of spatial heterogeneity, the technology for representing spatial structure, the resulting classification of urban mosaics, and the nature of application to sustainability. Ecology for the city encourages ecologists to engage with other specialists and urban dwellers to shape a more sustainable urban future.
KW - city
KW - complexity
KW - framework
KW - interdisciplinary
KW - paradigm
KW - social–ecological system
KW - spatial heterogeneity
KW - sustainability
KW - urban ecology
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U2 - 10.1002/ehs2.1229
DO - 10.1002/ehs2.1229
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84990898580
SN - 2096-4129
VL - 2
JO - Ecosystem Health and Sustainability
JF - Ecosystem Health and Sustainability
IS - 7
M1 - e01229
ER -