Urbanization poses one of the greatest challenges facing society, with many cities growing in area faster than in population, others with aging infrastructure, and the prospect of all population growth this century concentrated in cities. A sustainable future depends on striking a balance among increased urban intensification, biological conservation, and continued access to nature for people.

The Warren Lab seeks to understand processes generating and maintaining biological diversity in a world that is becoming increasingly dominated by humans. Research focuses on the impacts of urbanization on animals, from the population to the community level, as well as the relationships between humans and urban nature.

The highly managed city landscape provides biologists with some unique opportunities to understand behavior and evolutionary mechanisms underlying species persistence and community structures. A guiding principle for our research is that the typical indices of urbanization, such as human population density, describe only a portion of the habitat structure that is important for wildlife. Human behaviors, values, and resource consumption levels can influence the habitat and resource availability for birds and other organisms.