1. Urban expansion is an increasing threat to biodiversity, especially in tropical Africa where biodiversity hot spots are being encroached upon by fast-growing cities.Threatened species include bees and other pollinators, which deliver important ecosystem services but are sensitive to land use changes.2. We investigated the impact of urbanisation and vegetation management practices on pollinator abundance, bee diversity, and bee functional traits. We sampled 126 locations in a stratified random design across an urbanisation gradient in two medium-sized cities in the West African Forests biodiversity hot spot, encompassing three management practices (farmed sites; amenity lands, i.e. green spaces managed for aesthetics; informal green spaces), and tested their effect with generalised linear models.3. Urbanisation did not affect bee abundances or diversity but had a negative impact on both wasp and beetle abundances. There was also a management-mediated impact of urbanisation on bee abundances, which decreased with urbanisation on farmed sites but not amenity land or informal green spaces. Management practices alone influenced bee abundances with farms harbouring fewer bees, and amenity lands fewer beetles. 4. Bee genera occurrence and dominance patterns were influenced by both urbanisation and management, with some otherwise common genera rare in urban areas.5. Most functional traits were influenced by management, with fewer polylectic bees, cavity-nesting bees and long-tongued bees in farmed sites. Amenity lands hosted smaller bees and fewer savanna specialists. Some traits were influenced by urbanisation, with more long-tongued bees and cavity-nesting bees found in urban areas.6. Synthesis and applications. Pollinator responses to urbanisation are complex. In our research, we demonstrate how bee, lepidopteran, and non-fruit fly abundances have been maintained across an urbanisation gradient in tropical Africa, but not wasp and beetle abundances. Moreover, bee community composition and the distribution of traits shifted markedly. How green spaces were managed was also critical. We found that farmed sites hosted the lowest bee abundances and
W e are currently witnessing the fourth industrial revolution 1 . Technological innovations have altered the way in which economies operate and how people interact with built, social and natural environments. One area of transformation is the emergence of robotics and autonomous systems (RAS), defined as technologies that can sense, analyse, interact with and manipulate their physical environment 2 . RAS include unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), self-driving cars, robots able to repair infrastructure, and wireless sensor networks used for monitoring. RAS therefore have a large range of potential applications, such as autonomous transport, waste collection, infrastructure maintenance and repair, policing 2,3 and precision agriculture 4 (Fig. 1). RAS have already revolutionized how environmental data are collected 5 and how species populations are monitored for conservation 6 and/or control 7 . Globally, the RAS market is projected to grow from $6.2 billion in 2018 to $17.7 billion in 2026 8 .Concurrent with this technological revolution, urbanization continues at an unprecedented rate. By 2030, an additional 1.2 million km 2 of the planet's surface will be covered by towns and cities, with ~90% of this development happening in Africa and
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way people live in an unprecedented way. This includes severe impacts on people's health and wellbeing such as stress, reduced physical activity and loneliness due to confinement. In parallel, people had to find ways to secure their food, with fresh food especially scarce in some regions due to lockdowns and restricted flow of goods. As in previous massive crises, the practice of home food gardening seemed to have increased during this pandemic. Yet we largely do not know which parts of society took to home food gardening, in which urban setting home food gardening was practiced, and to which extent this practice contributed to people's daily livelihoods during the pandemic. In this case study we explore (a) who practices home food gardening, (b) the garden characteristics, and (c) the main perceived benefits and barriers bound to home food gardening during the pandemic. We set up an online questionnaire targeted at the population of Santiago de Chile, for which we received 305 responses. Our results clearly show that the possibility of being in contact with nature and feeling less stress through practicing home food gardening were the most significant perceived benefits, while lack of or inadequate space to garden and limited knowledge on home food gardening were the main barriers. These findings highlight for the specific context of a metropolitan region in South America that access to gardens and green space could contribute to a just urban society. Likewise, the practice of home food gardening can be a relevant tool to cope with the adverse consequences of the pandemic by informing public initiatives to promote healthier lifestyles during this and future crises contexts and also in the awaited “ordinary” times.
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