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FIGURE 2 in A new species of Sphaerotheca Günther, 1859 (Anura: Dicroglossidae) from the degraded urban ecosystems of Bengaluru, Deccan Plateau, India

FIGURE 2. Maximum Likelihood (ML) gene tree for species of Sphaerotheca based on 585 bp of mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene.

FIGURE 4 in A new species of Sphaerotheca Günther, 1859 (Anura: Dicroglossidae) from the degraded urban ecosystems of Bengaluru, Deccan Plateau, India

FIGURE 4. Sphaerotheca bengaluru sp. nov. holotype in preservative (A) Dorsal view (B) Ventral view.

FIGURE 5 in A new species of Sphaerotheca Günther, 1859 (Anura: Dicroglossidae) from the degraded urban ecosystems of Bengaluru, Deccan Plateau, India

FIGURE 5. Habitat of Sphaerotheca bengaluru sp. nov. from the type locality, a degraded ecosystem of Bengaluru.

FIGURE 2 in Frenopyxis stierlitzi gen. nov., sp. nov.-new testate amoeba (Amoebozoa Arcellinida) from the urban parks with notes on the systematics of the family Centropyxidae Jung, 1942

FIGURE 2. Scanning electron microscopic image of Frenopyxis stierlitzi: a–d—ventral views, e—dorsal view. Scale bars: a–e—10 µm, f—5 µm.

FIGURE 9 in Frenopyxis stierlitzi gen. nov., sp. nov.-new testate amoeba (Amoebozoa Arcellinida) from the urban parks with notes on the systematics of the family Centropyxidae Jung, 1942

FIGURE 9. Centropyxis with two-chambered shells: a—C. matthesi, b—C. sylvatica (after Dekhtjar 2009).

FIGURE 1 in Frenopyxis stierlitzi gen. nov., sp. nov.-new testate amoeba (Amoebozoa Arcellinida) from the urban parks with notes on the systematics of the family Centropyxidae Jung, 1942

FIGURE 1. Light micrographs of Frenopyxis stierlitzi: a–f, j–l—ventral views, g—ventro-lateral view, h, i—lateral views. Scale bar—20 µm.

FIGURE 8 in Frenopyxis stierlitzi gen. nov., sp. nov.-new testate amoeba (Amoebozoa Arcellinida) from the urban parks with notes on the systematics of the family Centropyxidae Jung, 1942

FIGURE 8. Armipyxis with the internal septa originated from the apertural tube attached to the dorsal wall: a–d—A. discoides (after Netzel 1975), e–g—A. gasparella (after Cherdez & Beyens 1988).

FIGURE 5 in Frenopyxis stierlitzi gen. nov., sp. nov.-new testate amoeba (Amoebozoa Arcellinida) from the urban parks with notes on the systematics of the family Centropyxidae Jung, 1942

FIGURE 5. Morphological variability of Centropyxis ecornis in a single population (after Filimonova et al. 2005). Scale bar 50 µm.

FIGURE 3 in Frenopyxis stierlitzi gen. nov., sp. nov.-new testate amoeba (Amoebozoa Arcellinida) from the urban parks with notes on the systematics of the family Centropyxidae Jung, 1942

FIGURE 3. Outline of Frenopyxis stierlitzi: ventral (left) and lateral (right) views. 1–8—characters of the shell measurements. Scale bar: 20 μm.

Building façade-level correlates of bird-window collisions in a small urban area

Urbanization increasingly exposes birds to multiple sources of direct anthropogenic mortality. Collisions with buildings, and windows in particular, are a top bird mortality source, annually causing 365-988 million fatalities in the United States. Correlates of window collision rates have been studied at the scale of entire buildings and in relation to the surrounding landscape, and most studies have only assessed correlates for all birds combined without considering season- and species-specific risk factors. In Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA, we conducted bird collision surveys at 16 buildings to assess building structural-, vegetation-, and land cover-related collision correlates. Unlike past studies, we focused at the scale of individual building façades, and in addition to considering correlates for total collisions, we assessed correlates for different seasons and separately for eight collision-prone species. Several façade-related features, including proportional glass coverage, façade length, and façade height, were positively associated with total collisions and collisions for most separate seasons and species. Total collisions were also greater at alcove-shaped façades than flat, curved, and portico-shaped façades. We found that collision correlates varied among seasons (e.g., surrounding lawn cover important in summer and fall, but not spring) and among species (e.g., surrounding impervious cover positively and negatively related to collisions of Painted Bunting and American Robin, respectively). Given the importance of glass proportion, collision reduction efforts should continue to focus on minimizing and/or treating glass surfaces on new and existing buildings. Our species and season-specific assessments indicate that management of some collision risk factors may not be equally effective for all seasons and species. Future research, policy, and management that integrates information about collision risk for all bird species and seasons, and at multiple scales from building façades to the surrounding landscape, will be most effective at reducing total mortality from bird-window collisions.

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2020View details →

Clustered Embedding using Deep Learning to Analyze Urban Mobility based on Complex Transportation Data

The subset of the anonymized dataset for personalized POI embedding.

Data from: Disparate patterns of movements and visits to points of interest located in urban hotspots across U.S. metropolitan cities during COVID-19

We examined the effect of social distancing on changes in visits to urban hotspot points of interest. In a pandemic situation, urban hotspots could be potential superspreader areas as visits to urban hotspots can increase the risk of contact and transmission of a disease among a population. We mapped origin-destination networks from census block groups to points of interest (POIs), such as restaurants, museums, and schools, in sixteen cities in the United States. We adopted a coarse-grain approach to examine patterns of visits to POIs among hotspots and non-hotspots from January to May 2020. Also, we conducted chi-square tests to identify POIs with significant flux-in changes during the analysis period. The results showed disparate patterns across cities in terms of reduction in hotspot POI visits. Sixteen cities are divided into two categories. In one category, which includes the cities of, San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago, we observe a considerable decrease in hotspot POI visits, while in another category, including the cites of, Austin, Houston, and San Diego, the visits to hotspots did not greatly decrease. While all the cities exhibited overall decreasing visits to POIs, one category maintained the proportion of visits to hotspot POIs. The proportion of visits to some POIs (e.g., Restaurants) remained stable during the social distancing period, while some POIs had an increased proportion of visits (e.g., Grocery Stores). We also identified POIs with significant flux-in changes, showing that related businesses were greatly affected by social distancing.

Data from: Impacts of habitat on butterfly dispersal in tropical forests, parks and grassland patches embedded in an urban landscape

Dispersal distances of 17 species of butterflies in tropical Singapore were significantly greater in forest than in urban habitat. Butterflies in urban plots frequently moved within suitable habitat (park/grassland) patches but rarely crossed non-habitat patches suggesting potential isolation and a need for urban corridors.

Data from: Functional diversity of phyllostomid bats in an urban-rural landscape: a scale-dependent analysis

Urbanization is one of the most pervasive landscape transformational processes responsible for novel selection agents promoting functional community homogenization. Bats may persist in those human environments, but the mechanisms responsible for their adaptability and the spatial scales in which landscape imposes environmental filtering remain poorly studied in the Neotropics. We tested the hypothesis that landscape composition interacts with the spatial scale to affect the functional diversity of phyllostomids in an urban-rural gradient. Based on functional traits, we calculated indices of functional richness, divergence, evenness, community-weighted means of morphological traits, and classified species into functional groups. We evaluated the changes of those variables in response to forest, grassland, and urbanized areas at 0.5, 1.25 and, 2 km scales. The number of functional groups, functional richness, and functional evenness tended to be higher in areas far from cities and with higher forest cover, whereas functional divergence increased in more urbanized areas. Our results show that the mean value of wing loading in the assemblage was negatively associated to landscape transformation at several spatial scales. However, environmental filtering driven by grass cover was particularly robust at the 500 m scale, affecting big-sized species with long pointed wings. Retaining natural forest in cattle ranging systems at ~12 km2 appears to favor bat abundance evenness among functional types in the urban-rural landscape. Recognizing the scale of the effect on phyllostomid functional responses appears to be a fundamental issue for elucidating the spatial extent to which phyllostomid conservation planning in urban-rural landscapes should be addressed.

Data from: Differing impacts of two major plant invaders on urban plant-dwelling spiders (Araneae) during flowering season

The dataset contains spider (Araneae) specimen numbers collected from flowering invasive American goldenrod (Solidago canadensis/gigantea) and invasive Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) stands occuring naturally in urban areas of the city of Karlsruhe, Germany. Corresponding plots with native ruderalized vegetation in direct vicinity of each invaded plot were used as a comparison plot, resulting in a fully paired design for each plant invader study. An additional column represents potential non-araneae prey items collected together with the spiders from each stand. Spider specimens were determined to the family level as well as classified into web builders and hunters without a web.

opencc-zeroJan 2021View details →

Maternal effects and urbanization: Variation of yolk androgens and immunoglobulin in city and forest blackbirds

Wildlife inhabiting urban environments exhibit drastic changes in morphology, physiology and behaviour. It has often been argued that these phenotypic responses could be the result of micro-evolutionary changes following the urbanization process. However, other mechanisms such as phenotypic plasticity, maternal effects and developmental plasticity could be involved as well. To address maternal effects as potential mechanisms, we compared maternal hormone and antibody concentrations in eggs between city and forest populations of European blackbirds (Turdus merula), a widely distributed species for which previous research demonstrated differences in behavioural and physiological traits. We measured egg and yolk mass, yolk concentrations of androgens (androstenedione (A4), testosterone (T), 5α-dihydrotestosterone (5α-DHT), and immunoglobulins (IgY) and related them to population, clutch size, laying order, embryo sex, and progress of breeding season. We show: i) earlier onset of laying in the city than forest population, but similar egg and clutch size; ii) higher overall yolk androgen concentrations in the forest than the city population (sex-dependent for T); iii) greater among-female variation of yolk T and 5α-DHT concentrations in the forest than city population, but similar within-clutch variation; iv) similar IgY concentrations with a seasonal decline in both populations; and v) population-specific positive (city) or negative (forest) association of yolk A4 and T with IgY concentrations. Our results are consistent with the hypotheses that hormone-mediated maternal effects contribute to differences in behavioural and physiological traits between city and forest individuals and that yolk androgen and immunoglobulin levels can exhibit population-specific relationships rather than tradeoff against each other.

Data for: Little parental response to anthropogenic noise in an urban songbird, but evidence for individual differences in sensitivity

Anthropogenic noise exposure has well-documented behavioral, physiological and fitness effects on organisms. However, whether different noise regimes evoke distinct responses has rarely been investigated, despite implications for tailoring noise mitigation policies. Urban animals might display low responsiveness to certain anthropogenic noise regimes, especially consistent noise (e.g. freeway noise), but might remain more sensitive to more diverse noise regimes. Additionally, whether individuals differ in noise sensitivity is a rarely explored issue, which is important to fully understand organismal responses to noise. To address these knowledge gaps, we used a field experiment to measure how urban great tits (Parus major) altered parental behaviors in response to two noise regimes: consistent freeway noise, and a diverse anthropogenic noise regime that incorporated variability in noise type and temporal occurrence. We also evaluated whether sex, age, or a well-described personality trait, novel environment exploration behavior, were associated with responses to noise, although our power to assess individual differences in responses was somewhat limited. We found no evidence for mean population-level changes in nestling provisioning behaviors during either noise treatment. However, despite this overall canalization of behavior, there was evidence for individual differences in noise sensitivity, particularly during the diverse noise treatment. Females and birds that explored a novel environment more rapidly (fast explorers) reduced nestling provisioning rate more relative to baseline levels than males and slow explorers during the diverse urban noise, but not during the consistent freeway noise. Furthermore, first year breeders and fast explorers displayed larger increases in latency to return to the nest box relative to baseline conditions during the diverse noise only. Results suggest that urban animal populations might become overall tolerant to anthropogenic noise, but that certain individuals within these populations nonetheless remain sensitive to certain types of noise exposure.

opennotspecifiedJan 2021View details →

FIGURE 3 in Meisterfeldia bitsevi-new testate amoeba of the family Cryptodifflugiidae Jung 1942 (Amoebozoa: Arcellinida) from the tree hollow in the urban park (Moscow Russia) with a key to species of the genus Meisterfeldia

FIGURE 3. Outline of Meisterfeldia bitsevi: ventral (left) and lateral (right) views. 1–5—characters of the shell measurements. Scale bar: 15 μm.

opennotspecifiedJan 2021View details →

FIGURE 2 in Meisterfeldia bitsevi-new testate amoeba of the family Cryptodifflugiidae Jung 1942 (Amoebozoa: Arcellinida) from the tree hollow in the urban park (Moscow Russia) with a key to species of the genus Meisterfeldia

FIGURE 2. Scanning electron microscopic image of Meisterfeldia bitsevi: a—ventral view, b—lateral view, c—dorsal view. Scale bar 10 µm. Magnification x 2,500.