Global Urban Biodiversity and the Importance of Scale

  • 6,360

    Total Downloads

  • 45k

    Total Views and Downloads

Submit your idea

Select the journal/section where you want your idea to be submitted:

Submit your manuscript summarySubmit your manuscript

About this Research Topic

Submission closed

Background

Despite rapid urbanization, we lack a general framework to study global urban biodiversity across scales. Many ecological and evolutionary processes are affected by urbanization, but cities vary by orders of magnitude in both their size and degree of development. An implicit assumption of most urban evolutionary ecology studies is that ecological and social processes scale consistently across the great diversity in city size, such that the patterns found in small and mid-sized urban areas would be the same in very large ones. However, social and physical characteristics of cities have been shown to scale in a variety of ways including linearly, superlinearly and sublinearly. City size is quantified differently across the globe (e.g., by human population size or impervious surface area) and the precise relationships between city size, biodiversity, and drivers that influence biodiversity are key knowledge gaps in the field of urban evolutionary ecology. Understanding these scaling relationships and their deviations is necessary to inform global urban biodiversity management. Achieving this requires a truly global and interdisciplinary approach, extending across the regional biases that persist in urban ecology, and integrating the historical and ongoing social inequities that underpin urban biodiversity.

The aim of this research topic is to explore these knowledge gaps in the field of scaling and global urban biodiversity. We have established a regionally and disciplinarily diverse editorial team and will recruit authors to: 1) quantitatively test global scaling relationships (as hypothesized in Uchida et al. (https://ecoevorxiv.org/9kfp2/); 2) provide insights from understudied regions on the interplay between ecological, evolutionary and social factors that drive urban biodiversity; and, 3) explore human dimensions of urban biodiversity scaling, including understanding how scaling can influence biodiversity management, environmental justice and cross-scale functional arrangements whereby differently scaling natural-cultural processes overlap to form novel urban ecosystems. We envision two main sections of contributed papers.

SECTION 1: Global patterns and processes in biodiversity scaling. Papers in this section will focus on documenting macroecological patterns and processes of how biodiversity and eco-evolutionary processes scale with city size in urban areas including those related to ecosystem services and disservices with specific implications for biodiversity. We aim to solicit papers from areas traditionally under-represented in global urban biodiversity and macroecological science. We will ask authors to discuss outstanding questions in the context of their region or to develop more synthetic papers.

SECTION 2: Philosophical and ethical issues arising from urban biodiversity scaling. Papers in this section will focus on documenting philosophical, ethical or political issues that arise from conservation and scale in cities, emphasizing the human dimensions of biodiversity. We aim to solicit papers from a diverse set of scholars, geographically, and in terms of disciplinary approach to questions of biodiversity and urban ecology. We will ask authors to reflect on Uchida et. al. (see above) and possibly papers from Section 1 above, to explore how these ideas translate into philosophical or ethical problems and solutions which are of relevance to managing biodiversity in urban ecosystems.

We would also like to credit Mr Dan Cooper and Mr Chase Neisner of UCLA for their assistance with this Research Topic.

Please Note:
• Abstracts are not compulsory and failing to submit an abstract will not prevent a full manuscript submission. However, they enable the Guest Editors to perform a preliminary assessment and are therefore highly encouraged.
• Guest Editors will evaluate each abstract and provide feedback to the authors, including recommendation to transfer to a different Research Topic or journal section based on the relevance of the content.
• While submissions of abstracts are encouraged before the deadline, abstracts will be considered for evaluation also after it (the submission link will remain active).
• Abstracts have a maximum word count of 1000.
• Authors can find the full list of article types accepted for this collection here.

Keywords: urbanization, eco-evolutionary dynamics, scale, racial justice, macroecology

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

Topic editors

Frequently asked questions

  • Frontiers' Research Topics are collaborative hubs built around an emerging theme.Defined, managed, and led by renowned researchers, they bring communities together around a shared area of interest to stimulate collaboration and innovation.

    Unlike section journals, which serve established specialty communities, Research Topics are pioneer hubs, responding to the evolving scientific landscape and catering to new communities.

  • The goal of Frontiers' publishing program is to empower research communities to actively steer the course of scientific publishing. Our program was implemented as a three-part unit with fixed field journals, flexible specialty sections, and dynamically emerging Research Topics, connecting communities of different sizes and maturity.

    Research Topics originate from the scientific community. Many of our Research Topics are suggested by existing editorial board members who have identified critical challenges or areas of interest in their field.

  • As an editor, Research Topics will help you build your journal, as well as your community, around emerging, cutting-edge research. As research trailblazers, Research Topics attract high-quality submissions from leading experts all over the world.

    A thriving Research Topic can potentially evolve into a new specialty section if there is sustained interest and a growing community around it.

  • Each Research Topic must be approved by the specialty chief editor, and they fall under the editorial oversight of our editorial boards, supported by our in-house research integrity team. The same standards and rigorous peer review processes apply to articles published as part of a Research Topic as for any other article we publish.

      In 2023, 80% of the Research Topics we published were edited or co-edited by our editorial board members, who are already familiar with their journal's scope, ethos, and publishing model. All other topics are guest edited by leaders in their field, each vetted and formally approved by the specialty chief editor.

  • Publishing your article within a Research Topic with other related articles increases its discoverability and visibility, which can lead to more views, downloads, and citations. Research Topics grow dynamically as more published articles are added, causing frequent revisiting, and further visibility.

    As Research Topics are multidisciplinary, they are cross-listed in several fields and section journals – increasing your reach even more and giving you the chance to expand your network and collaborate with researchers in different fields, all focusing on expanding knowledge around the same important topic.

    Our larger Research Topics are also converted into ebooks and receive social media promotion from our digital marketing team.

     

  • Frontiers offers multiple article types, but it will depend on the field and section journals in which the Research Topic will be featured. The available article types for a Research Topic will appear in the drop-down menu during the submission process.

    Check available article types here 

  • Yes, we would love to hear your ideas for a topic. Most of our Research Topics are community-led and suggested by researchers in the field. Our in-house editorial team will contact you to talk about your idea and whether you’d like to edit the topic. If you’re an early-stage researcher, we will offer you the opportunity to coordinate your topic, with the support of a senior researcher as the topic editor. 

    Suggest your topic here 

  • A team of guest editors (called topic editors) lead their Research Topic. This editorial team oversees the entire process, from the initial topic proposal to calls for participation, the peer review, and final publications.

    The team may also include topic coordinators, who help the topic editors send calls for participation, liaise with topic editors on abstracts, and support contributing authors. In some cases, they can also be assigned as reviewers.

  • As a topic editor (TE), you will take the lead on all editorial decisions for the Research Topic, starting with defining its scope. This allows you to curate research around a topic that interests you, bring together different perspectives from leading researchers across different fields and shape the future of your field. 

     

    You will choose your team of co-editors, curate a list of potential authors, send calls for participation and oversee the peer review process, accepting or recommending rejection for each manuscript submitted.

  • As a topic editor, you're supported at every stage by our in-house team. You will be assigned a single point of contact to help you on both editorial and technical matters. Your topic is managed through our user-friendly online platform, and the peer review process is supported by our industry-first AI review assistant (AIRA).

  • If you’re an early-stage researcher, we will offer you the opportunity to coordinate your topic, with the support of a senior researcher as the topic editor. This provides you with valuable editorial experience, improving your ability to critically evaluate research articles and enhancing your understanding of the quality standards and requirements for scientific publishing, as well as the opportunity to discover new research in your field, and expand your professional network.

  • Yes, certificates can be issued on request. We are happy to provide a certificate for your contribution to editing a successful Research Topic.

  • Research Topics thrive on collaboration and their multi-disciplinary approach around emerging, cutting-edge themes, attract leading researchers from all over the world.

  • As a topic editor, you can set the timeline for your Research Topic, and we will work with you at your pace. Typically, Research Topics are online and open for submissions within a few weeks and remain open for participation for 6 – 12 months. Individual articles within a Research Topic are published as soon as they are ready.

    Find out more about our Research Topics

  • Our fee support program ensures that all articles that pass peer review, including those published in Research Topics, can benefit from open access – regardless of the author's field or funding situation.

    Authors and institutions with insufficient funding can apply for a discount on their publishing fees. A fee support application form is available on our website.

  • In line with our mission to promote healthy lives on a healthy planet, we do not provide printed materials. All our articles and ebooks are available under a CC-BY license, so you can share and print copies.

     

Impact

  • 45kTopic views
  • 36kArticle views
  • 6,360Article downloads
View impact