Cities as Novel Biomes: Recognizing Urban Ecosystem Services as Anthropogenic

Abstract

Urban Ecosystem Science is now an established science, arising along side the historic shift of humans to becoming in majority urban dwellers. In this Perspective I suggest there is a need to develop a new framework for UES as embedded in distinct urban biomes that can be classified by city-type and typologized. UES are largely the artifact of human decision making from what to plant where, to determining the urban infrastructure type in which UES will be placed. Developing urban typologies by climate zone, level of development, size and history will better enable the understanding of UES. I attempt to show the rise of the importance of nature, and of urban nature following the development of industrial city, and the importance of human intent in creating these urban ecosystems over time. If humans choose to manage cities through increasing UES, this will require coupled shifts, the shift in rules and regulations, goals and processes and shifts in urban form, infrastructure and function-socio-technical-ecological changes-driven by human decision-making. Such efforts will vary widely by city-by urban biome.

Urban non-timber forest products stewardship practices among foragers in Seattle, washington (USA)

“…In such environments, a restoration approach driven by species' origins is unlikely to be successful in the long run. Instead, it is important to focus on the ecological services that novel ecosystems already do or could provide, and acknowledge the positive contributions that humans can make to those ecosystems (Pincetl, 2015). The long term sustained commitment of many foragers can support stewardship programs.…”

“…A move away from the "leave-no-trace" norm governing park use is already occurring within the Seattle Parks Department, fueled in part by the city's influential urban agriculture movement. Also promising is the shift within the fields of ecology, forestry, and urban planning toward seeing cities as socio-ecological systems, with humans considered integral-and positive-components of urban green spaces (Pincetl, 2015). In Seattle, the opportunities for the Parks Department to engage with foraging in a positive way are doubly enhanced by the already blurry distinction between land stewards and foragers.…”

Urban Foraging: A Ubiquitous Human Practice Overlooked by Urban Planners, Policy, and Research

“…The synthesis presented here suggests key ways that future empirical research can address important questions about this ubiquitous practice. Figure 2 depicts the social-ecological systems in which foraging operates, highlighting the ways we see urban ecological contexts-or cities as novel biomes [47]-as shaped first by social-economic contexts, and secondarily by bio-physical context (which are also deliberately or unconsciously modified by the social-economic dynamics). Within the social and ecological settings at the local scale, foraging is comprised of and influenced by diverse actors and the specific practices they undertake in relation to an array of sites and species.…”

“…The novel ecological assemblages of urban environments [47] include native and non-native species in often shifting spatial distributions as the development of the built environment and management of designated greenspaces creates conditions for some plant and fungal species to flourish, and others to become less abundant or locally eradicated. These ecological dynamics are affected by social processes, along with the direct and indirect effects of climate change on species prevalence and abundance [48].…”

Incipient Domestication Processes in Multicultural Contexts: A Case Study of Urban Parks in San Carlos de Bariloche (Argentina)

“…Cities are often described as new ecosystems or "novel ecosystems, " since there were no analogous natural ecosystems previous to human population (Hobbs et al, 2006), and they are even called "novel biomes" (Pincetl, 2016). These urban ecosystems contain microenvironments and biological ensembles (such as urban parks), which in contrast to natural remnant ecosystems are constructed and designed by their inhabitants (Grimm et al, 2000).…”