April 12, 2024
The Urban Wildlife Information Network: a research alliance to increase our understanding of urban environments from local to global scales
Dr. Mason Fidino
Quantitative Ecologist, Lincoln Park Zoo
Abstract
Most people now live in cities, in one form or another. Many cities are small, some are large, and most of them are growing in population size and extent. Yet, while social, economic, and infrastructural aspects of cities predictably scale with their size, there is dramatic uncertainty about how urban nature – and all the biodiversity within – varies across spatial scales. To better understand variation in urban biodiversity both within and among cities, the Urban Wildlife Information Network (UWIN) was formed in 2017. Over this talk I will provide an overview of UWIN and showcase some of the key results over the last few years, which range from understanding how patterns of gentrification shape patterns of biodiversity across cities to how species diel behavior changes as a function of anthropogenic pressure worldwide.
Biosketch
Dr. Mason Fidino is a quantitative ecologist that works in the Conservation & Science department at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois. Mason’s research, for the most part, is in biodiversity informatics. He integrates large and complex data sources, develops new quantitative techniques, and uses high-performance computing to determine how biodiversity responds to environmental change across multiple spatiotemporal scales. Mason is especially interested in understanding ecological principles in urban environments and, through their research, looks for ways to leverage the vast data sources that exist in cities to answer pressing social-ecological issues. In addition to their own research, Mason serves as the analytics advisor for the Urban Wildlife Information Network—the world’s first multi-city biodiversity-monitoring network designed to systematically connect ecological findings across cities.