Projects

Summary:

As urban areas rapidly expand, natural environments are exposed to a range of anthropogenic pressures and undergo major changes, that often lead to the decline or extinction of local populations. The organisms living in urban areas face rapid and extreme changes in environmental conditions such as increased artificial nocturnal light, habitat fragmentation and transformation, as well as severe changes in the climatic parameters like temperature. As such, urbanization drives important changes in the local communities, altering the species pool and affecting the evolution of life history traits, as populations adapt to urban environments. Furthermore, urbanization also creates a window of opportunity for the colonization of these man-made ecosystems, which are nowadays recognized as hot-spots of biological invasions.

Although urban ecology is a fast-growing topic in the field of ecology, the effects of urbanization on the biodiversity of the different communities found in urban areas are still poorly understood. The project “Urban Jungle Ponds” is running in several large European cities and aims to investigate the effect of urbanization in freshwater microecosystems (e.g. buckets and saucers for flower pots), which are abundant in urban areas and constitute suitable habitats for insects.

Partners:

Salzburg, Austria - Jana Petermann (Universität Salzburg)

Berlin, Germany - Camille Musseau (Freie Universität Berlin)

London, United Kingdom - Pavel Kratina (Queen Mary University of London), Liam Nash (Queen Mary University of London)

České Budějovice, Czech Republic - Bruno M. Carreira (University of South Bohemia), David Boukal (University of South Bohemia)

 Summary:

Despite the growing body of literature on the ecosystem services provided by urban ponds, the linkage between pond ecological status and social valuation by the citizens is still unclear. Although citizens in general lack the scientific knowledge to distinguish between trophic states of aquatic ecosystems, their perception and valuation of urban ponds can be used as an indicator of the trophic status of urban ponds, even if it may vary for different ecosystem services.

Responsible for nutrient recycling and carbon sequestration, primary producers are key players in the functioning of aquatic ecosystems. By studying the structure and biodiversity of the community of primary producers, the project “Urban Algae” aims to assess the ecological status of urban ponds and to determine if the citizens' perception and valuation of urban ponds and their ecosystem services matches their ecological status.

Partners:

Sonia Herrero Ortega, Cleo N. Stratmann, Susanne Stephan, Mandy Velthuis, Meritxell Abril, Marta M. Alirangues Nuñez, Marina Amadori, Ciorca Anca-Mihaela, Rebeca Arias del Real, Ignasi Arranz, Silviu Bercea, Pascal Bodmer, María Borrego-Ramos, Gemma Burgazzi, Marco J. Cabrerizo, Bruno M. Carreira, Daniel Castro López, Joanna Chmist, Miriam Colls, Valentin Dinu, Ioana Enache, Zeynep Ersoy, Carmen Espinosa Angona, Edurne Estévez, Megan Fork, Anna Freeman, Thijs Frenken, Galia Georgieva, Lluís Gómez-Gener, Alexia María González-Ferreras, Juan David González-Trujillo, Veronica Granados, Vesna Grujcic, Luigi Hinegk, Tsvetelina Isheva, Laura Jiménez, Katarina Kajan, Edit Király, Marcus Klaus, Sophia Kochalski, Zsuzsanna Kókai, Fatime Krasniqi, Antonija Kulaš, Andreja Kust, Edina Lengyel, Gregorio López Moreira, Áron Lukács, Theresa Lumpi, Javier Miralles-Lorenzo, Jorge Montes, Daniel Morant, Emilio Moreno, Giuliano Morini, Maria Iasmina Moza, Maira Mucci, Karla Münzner, Camille Musseau, Maria Myrstener, Magdalena Nagler, Veronica Nava, Sara Nderjaku, Eriselda Ndoj, Georg H. Niedrist, Jenny Nilsson, Darmina Niță, Adriana Olenici, Beatrice Palmia, Albert Palou Vilar, Martina Patelli, Ignacio Pérez-Silos, Simone Podschun, Eric Puche, Sophia E. Renes, Biljana Rimcheska, Gerard Rocher-Ros, Tamara RodríguezCastillo, Pablo Rodríguez-Lozano, Alban Sagouis, Andrea Salvadore, Raquel Sánchez de Pedro, Klea Selimollari, Géza B. Selmeczy, Edoardo Severini, Serena Sgarzi, Vinicius Silva Kavaguti, Vladimir Stambolski, Max Stammnitz, Desislava Stoyanova, Monika Subeva, Ewelina Szałkiewicz, Sara Turiel-Santos, Lara Urban, Máté Vass, Víctor Vázquez, Aida Viza and Aitziber Zufiaurre.

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Emil Racoviță Institute of Speleology, ICRA, Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, CREAF, EMBL European Bioinformatics Institute, FU-Berlin, IGB, Institute Ruđer Bošković, Czech Academy of Sciences, MTA-PE, NIOO-KNAW, Poznan University of Live Science, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Universities of Babeș-Bolyai, Barcelona, Bucharest, California-Berkeley, Cambridge, Cantabria, Debrecen, Granada, Innsbruck, Koblenz-Landau, León, Málaga, Milano-Bicocca, Parma, Pannonia, Reading, South Bohemia, Tirana, Trento, Zagreb, Umeå, Uppsala, Vic and Wageningen