Paige co-authored one of 16 articles in a special issue on urban evolution in the Proceedings of the Royal Society: http://royalsocietypublishing.org/cc/the-evolution-of-city-life

The editors produced a nice blog post about the special issue: http://blogs.royalsociety.org/publishing/the-evolution-of-city-life/

Collectively, the editors say, “papers in this Special Feature highlight the power of cities as a globally replicated experiment that provides an unparalleled opportunity to understand how human-altered environments, and particularly cities, affect the evolution of life around us. In this context there are three take-aways from the 15 papers published in this Special Feature. First, studies on ants, plants, birds, and bees have all shown that cities frequently alter natural selection. Second, this altered selection frequently leads urban populations to be better adapted to cities than their nonurban counterparts, an effect which is often consistent across different cities. Third, the development of cities has given rise to new human commensal species, as in the case of house sparrows, which have evolved to thrive on starch-rich diets commonly found in human-dominated landscapes.“

Our contribution shows that species interactions like pollination can play a role in mediating effects of natural selection on plant traits. However, these effects are sometimes rather modest, and the strength of their effect on natural selection can vary from year to year.

Dr. Warren was one of 5 experts invited to testify at a hearing before the Boston City Council on June 18. The hearing was called to discuss and assess current and future tree coverage in the City of Boston. Dr. Warren testified on the topic of equity in tree canopy cover distribution in Boston and other cities around the country.

Boston exhibits considerable variation in levels of tree canopy across the city, with some neighborhoods supporting lush, shady streets, and others virtually treeless. Studies are divided, however, on the question of equity (systematic disparities in access to tree canopy). A 2014 study from the Warren lab found income disparities, with higher canopy cover in wealthier areas, but another 2014 study found no income relationship. Both studies agree that there are not significant racial disparities in access to tree canopy cover across the city. Dr. Warren pointed out, however, that even when current canopy coverage is not inequitably distributed, there can still be issues with equity in the process of tree planting.

A lively crowd gathered Wednesday to hear Evan Kuras share findings from his survey of nearly 600 fifth grade student participants in ECOS, a environmental education program in Springfield, Massachusetts. Teachers from the ECOS program also reflected on the findings, which emphasized the importance of building on student experiences in ECOS through follow up conversations with classroom teachers and parents. 

An exploration of the ecological and social value of vacant lots in Baltimore has gotten the attention of Anthropocene magazine. Dr. Warren is a co-author on the paper with Christine Rega-Brodsky and Charlie Nilon.

http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2018/06/vacant-lot-management/

The original article can be found at:

http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/5/1679/htm

Warren Lab undergraduates Jodie Berezin and Christina Seymour completed senior thesis projects in the lab this semester, and we are so proud of them!

Jodie‘s research on male elephant social behavior in different parks and reserves in Tanzania is part of an ongoing project with the School for Field Studies, and she collected her data under the advisement of Dr. John Kioko. Jodie joined the Warren Lab as a field crew technician during the summer of 2017 to help with graduate student Kit Straley’s dissertation on the Wood Thrush, and she analyzed nest camera footage for parental behaviors during her last semester at UMass. Her passion for animal behavior and conservation is inspiring, and she shared that passion by presenting her elephant work at an undergraduate research conference this past month. Way to go, Jodie!

Christina‘s research focuses on the effects of urbanization on ectoparasite loads, anthropogenic nest materials, and nestling health in the House Wren. She joined the lab during the summer of 2017 as a field crew technician to help with graduate student Aaron Grade’s dissertation on the House Wren. She stayed on in the lab during the semester to begin dissecting the very nests she so carefully monitored during the summer. Conclusion: wrens are dirty messy birds. She persevered through thousands of mites, and helped the lab develop an assessment tool for mite loads which we will continue to use in the future. Today Christina did an excellent job presenting her findings to her program. Way to go, Christina!

In this new paper, researchers examined breeding bird assemblages from 58 cities across the globe to compare their phylogenetic and functional diversity to their regional bird assemblages. The goal was to determine the efficacy of a new method of sampling to circumvent the “space-for-time” substitution used in urban studies.

La Sorte, F.A., C.A. Lepczyk, M.F.J. Aronson, M.A. Goddard, M. Hedblom, M. Katti, I. MacGregor-Fors, U. Mörtberg, C.H. Nilon, P.S. Warren, N.S.G Williams, and J. Yang. (2018). The phylogenetic and functional diversity of regional breeding bird assemblages is reduced and constricted through urbanization. Diversity and Distributions Epub ahead of print. DOI: 10.1111/ddi.12738

The latest publication from our Boston urban ecology project just came out in Urban Forestry and Urban Greening: Active Greening or Rewilding the city: How does the intention behind small pockets of urban green affect use? by Rachel Danford, Michael Strohbach, Paige Warren, and Robert Ryan

The journal gave us this link, designed to provide 50 days’ free access to the article: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1WgP95m5d7a60d