When invasion ecology looks at cities and urban areas

November 10, 2017

The historical roots of urban invasion studies across the rural–rural-wild spectrum. Fig. 1 in Salomon Cavin & Kull 2017. Kindly drawn by Lionel Cavin.

The study of invasive plants and animals has started to pay attention to cities.  In a paper just out, written by my colleague Joëlle Salomon Cavin and me, we document this ‘urban turn’ and ask what its implications are.  Specifically, our paper does a few things. We review how the ecological sciences in general have long had blinders as far as matters urban go, but also the existence of alternative paradigms – notably in 20th century European circles and in diverse ‘urban ecology’ traditions. Then, we look in more detail at how invasion biology has dealt with (or ignored) cities. In doing so, we Read the rest of this entry »


Using the ‘regime shift’ concept to analyse society-environment change

November 8, 2017

What happens when you take a concept developed to describe lacustrine ecology or fire regimes and apply it to complex social-ecological phenomena involving politics, economics, culture, and more?  What challenges occur when concepts are borrowed from systems ecology or complexity science and applied to situations with people, power, perceptions, contingencies, and feelings?

I’m excited to announce a brand-new paper that addresses exactly these questions (official link; authors preprint PDF).  Published in Geographical Research, the paper does four things: Read the rest of this entry »