Journal of Land Use Science

Urbanization, a rapid and intensive form of human-driven transformation of natural habitats, is currently a significant threat to biodiversity on the Earth. However, species exhibit extraordinary variation in their ability to coexist with humans and even thrive in human proximity. To predict how wildlife will cope with ongoing urbanization and whether will locally thrive or decline (and eventually go extinct) in anthropogenically modified landscapes, we need to understand how biodiversity, urbanization, and land use interact at multiple levels and which processes shape and drive successful coexistence between wildlife and humans.

Human settlements around the world are highly variable in their size, the nature of development, human population size and density, and overall landscape configuration. Methodological approaches coming from various disciplines like landscape ecology, land system science, and particularly urban ecology may help in understanding the current crisis of biodiversity at the global scale. However, it is worth underlining that world regions differ in local and regional biodiversity, evolutionary history and functional traits, and the history of human-wildlife coexistence. Hence, our knowledge and observations are often not transmissible between different eco-regions and types of human settlements, and between regions with distinct histories of urbanization processes. Our understanding of biodiversity patterns – along the urban-rural-natural gradient and processes involved in the ability of wildlife to invade, survive, and adapt to life in areas with different levels of human disturbance – is far from complete, particularly from a comparative and global perspective. While advancement has been made during the last few decades, most previous studies on urbanization and biodiversity have covered single cities in Europe and North America, with significant spatial gaps especially in the Global South. Moreover, we still do not fully understand, for example, how biodiversity and urban “adaptations” of wildlife differ between human settlements of various sizes (e.g. villages vs metropolises) or different types of settlements (e.g. compact vs dispersed cities).

This Article Collection welcomes novel contributions that focus on the complex relationships between urbanization, biodiversity, and land use under different urbanization systems from all world regions. We aim to highlight a special focus on exploring and documenting situations outside Europe and North America where most studies are typically conducted.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

1. Interactions between Urbanization and Biodiversity: The global challenge of urbanization as a significant threat to biodiversity, emphasizing the need for a deeper understanding of how biodiversity and urbanization interact.
2. Regional Variability and Comparative Studies: Exploring how biodiversity varies in urban settings worldwide, what is worth to more detailed studies.
3. Integrating Landscape Ecology and Land System Science: Discussing the intersection of landscape ecology and land system science as crucial for understanding biodiversity patterns along urban-rural-natural gradients.
4. Urban Adaptations and Wildlife Conservation: Explore how wildlife adapts to urban environments and the importance of designing landscapes to support dynamic conservation efforts.
5. Case Studies and Regional Analysis: Specific case studies can provide concrete examples of the topics discussed. These will illustrate the diverse impacts of urbanization on biodiversity in different regions.
6. Policy and Management Perspectives: Discussing the need for robust biodiversity policies, as informed by comprehensive research and models.
7. Protected Areas and Land-Cover Change: Addressing the challenges and dynamics of land-cover change in and around protected areas, as these are crucial for biodiversity conservation in the face of urbanization.
8. Global Change and Biodiversity Hotspots: Finally, emphasizing the urgency of addressing biodiversity loss in hotspots under threat from global changes, setting a tone for future research and action.

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Piotr Tryjanowski started his career as a classical naturalist and birdwatcher (ornithologist). During his PhD studies, however, he began to study agricultural ecology, mathematical modelling, ecology and then urbanization processes. He is fascinated by independency and nature conservation, so he launched a project called data not dogma, looking for evidence for effective nature conservation. This has been a reason for cooperation with hunters, engineers, urban planners etc. His publications as well as public and educational activities are linked to many scientific disciplines and cover not only biological sciences, but also sociology, psychology and economics.

Annette Menzel is Professor of Ecoclimatology at the Technical University of Munich. Her interdisciplinary research interests are interactions between atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, comprising plants, animals, and humans. Her most renowned publications center around (phenology-mediated) impacts of climate change and extreme events on terrestrial ecosystems as well as on human health. Most recently, citizen science projects have been developed to integrate general public data and initiatives.

Peter Mikula finished his PhD in zoology at Charles University (Czechia). He is particularly studying animal behaviour from macroecological and macroevolutionary perspective. His research interests are in human–wildlife coexistence, urban ecology, biodiversity, bioacoustics, conservation culturomics and iEcology, and the use of big data from publicly available databases in ecological and evolutionary research.

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review; the Guest Advisor for this collection will not be handling the manuscripts (unless they are an Editorial Board member). Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is July 15, 2024.

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