Tree leaf-associated microbiota have been studied in natural ecosystems but less so in urban settings, where anthropogenic pressures on trees could impact microbial communities and modify their interaction with their hosts. Additionally, trees act as vectors spreading bacterial cells in the air in urban environments due to the density of microbial cells on aerial plant surfaces. Characterizing ...

A common belief is that, unlike today, ancient urban areas developed in a sustainable way within the environmental limits of local natural resources and the ecosystem's capacity to respond. This long-held paradigm is based on a weak knowledge of the processes underpinning the emergence of urban life and the rise of an urban-adapted environment in and beyond city boundaries. Here, we report a 60...

Urban streams can provide amenities to people living in cities, but those benefits are reduced when become degraded, potentially even causing harm (disease, toxic compounds, etc.). Governments and institutions invest resources improve the values services provided by urban streams; however, conception, development, implementation of such projects may not include meaningful involvement community ...

Rapid urbanization has occurred in northwestern China, threatening the sustainability of its fragile dryland ecosystems. A lack of precise urban land-cover information has limited our understanding on the urbanization in the dryland. Here, we examined urban land-cover changes from 2000 to 2014 in 21 major cities that comprise over 50% of the developed land in arid China, using Landsat Enhanced ...

Urban areas in the Brazilian Amazon have grown at an unprecedented rate during last years. About 90% of wastewater produced by these urban are discharged untreated into Amazonian freshwater ecosystems, constituting a potential environmental pathway for pharmaceuticals and other chemicals consumed modern societies (e.g. psychostimulants, personal-care products, hormones). The distribution River ...

Proactive management of invasive species in urban areas is critical to restricting their overall distribution. The objective of this work is to determine whether advanced remote sensing technologies can help to detect invasions effectively and efficiently in complex urban ecosystems such as parks. In Surrey, BC, Canada, Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus) and English ivy (Hedera helix) are ...