The diverse plants and animals that live in urban areas often go underappreciated. Consider the squirrel. Because squirrels are so common where people live, they are usually dismissed as “not real nature” — yet they can be incredibly important in urban food webs. By eating seeds and nuts, and moving them to different parts of the landscape, squirrels change where and how many young trees grow, especially our native oaks, walnuts, and hickories. They also compete with other animals, such as mice, for those nuts and seeds, and they can be a food source for foxes, raccoons, and other larger animals.
Adding trees and other plants into neighborhoods (e.g., green spaces) can help cities mediate extreme heat and flooding. I’m working with Scenic Hudson and community-based organizations to understand how changing green spaces in cities impact plants, animals, and people. We’re studying three cities in the Hudson Valley — Kingston, Newburgh, and Poughkeepsie — that are developing greenways, or connected green spaces that can offer habitat and corridors for wildlife. We’re documenting what species of plants and animals, including pollinators and pests, use these habitats, and how those species influence ecological function locally and regionally. We’re calling this project Defining Urban Biodiversity, and if you live in or frequent one of these cities, you can help us!
What is biodiversity, and why do we care?
Simply put, biodiversity is the number of living things that exist in a given area. At a higher level, biodiversity also encompasses how those species fit together and interact, and how those interactions fluctuate across space and time. For example, we saw a lot of both red and gray fox using forested patches and vacant lots in Poughkeepsie last October. But in July, we saw almost no fox activity. So there's clearly a seasonal element to when foxes are using those spaces, and we want to know why, and where they go when they're not there.
Biodiversity can support more resilient cities and bring other benefits to communities, but it also has a flip side. When green spaces aren’t managed, they can open gateways for species that are problematic for people, including invasive species, rats, mosquitoes, ticks, poison ivy, and wildlife that are not well-suited for urban life (like deer and bear). Our project is investigating what types of plant and animal communities encourage people to use and maintain urban green spaces.
As part of this research, we are surveying 30 sites across the three cities, looking at birds, vegetation, pollinators, and ticks. We’ve deployed camera traps to record wildlife activity. And we’ll be monitoring these sites through at least fall 2027. We’re also studying the context around each site, because a vacant lot surrounded by pavement is going to have a different community of species than a vacant lot surrounded by forest, for example.
Another important component of the project is engaging with community groups and residents who live near and use these green spaces. In the next stages of the project, we hope to learn more about how people use and value different green spaces, and — here’s the fun part — we’re giving people a chance to participate in the project as community scientists.
Help collect urban biodiversity data. Become a community scientist.
You can join us for a BioBlitz on August 23 in Newburgh’s Downing Park to learn how you can participate. We’ll be hosting a similar event in Kingston’s Forsyth Park on September 9, and a third one in Poughkeepsie September 17.
Each BioBlitz will include plant and animal scavenger hunts to get you acquainted with the local flora and fauna, and walk you through how you can contribute to Defining Urban Biodiversity by joining our projects on the iNaturalist app.
iNaturalist is a free app that anybody can put on their phone. And if you join one of our iNat projects in Poughkeepsie, Kingston, or Newburgh, you’ll receive prompts — for example, “This week, let’s look at birds!” — that encourage you to get outside, take photos, and share the photos via iNaturalist to help expand our data collection.
We hope to see you at one of our upcoming events! And in the meantime, keep an eye out for our next blog post, in which my colleagues at Scenic Hudson will explain why we chose the sites we’re studying, and why biodiversity is important from an urban planning perspective.
