College of Agriculture & Natural Resources

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1598

The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Urban Ecology

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    THE EFFECTS OF HISTORICAL AND CURRENT LAND USE ON THE HABITAT USE AND COMMUNITIES OF URBAN WILDLIFE IN THE WASHINGTON, D.C. METROPOLITAN AREA
    (2024) Collins, Merri Kathleen; Gallo, Travis; Environmental Science and Technology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Understanding past legacies of urban land use is important to identify ecological processes and inform best management practices for wildlife-friendly cities in the future. My first dissertation chapter is an overview of my personal research philosophy and how it relates to this dissertation. The second chapter is a systematic literature review that addresses the state of global urban wildlife research. Urban wildlife research is predominantly conducted in North America, Europe, and Australia by academic researchers, and less so in the Global South. The third chapter explores how a gregarious species, the Eastern wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) once extant from the Washinton, D.C. landscape, is making a comeback. Wild turkey had a higher probability of occupying sites further from roads and at lower elevations. The fourth and concluding chapter looks at historic neighborhood valuation in Washington, D.C. to identify any legacy effects of racist and discriminatory urban planning on mammal communities. While I did not find any relationship, I did find similar mammal communities across the city regardless of neighborhood categorization and I derive management implications from this information.
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    Ecological Restoration Drives Functional Composition and Diversity in Urban Forest Patches
    (2020) Do, Sara Miya; Johnson, Lea R; Plant Science and Landscape Architecture (PSLA); Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Urbanization greatly alters environmental conditions, affecting biodiversity in cities and ecological processes. To restore processes and native biodiversity, land managers have turned to ecological restoration of urban forest patches. Urban forest patches, nested within urban ecosystems, are subject to urban influences during ecological succession. Building on a long-term study evaluating outcomes of ecological restoration in New York City, I examined the effects of urban conditions, restoration, and forest succession on functional composition and diversity of restored and unrestored urban forest patches after 15-20 years. Functional traits play an essential role in community assemblages and influence the resilience and ecosystem functioning of urban ecosystems. I found that restored plots had greater functional evenness. Differences in functional composition indicated direct influence from restoration, succession, urban conditions, and success in meeting restoration goals. These results demonstrate that ecological restoration drives changes in functional composition and diversity of urban forest patches.