Hauck, T. E. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2024

The ECOLOPES PLANT MODEL : a high-resolution model to simulate plant community dynamics in cities and other human-dominated and managed environments

Cities and urbanized areas have become an important habitat for organisms. Although nature can provide multiple ecosystem services to humans, urban planning and architecture often do not adequately consider the ecological needs of species. In ECOLOPES we envision buildings, and in particular building envelopes, to be a joint habitat for humans, plants, animals and microbiota as equally relevant stakeholders. A centerpiece of the planning and design tools that ECOLOPES provides is a joint soil-plant-animal community model. We present the first prototype of the ECOLOPES PLANT (community) MODEL that responds to 3-dimensional (building) geometry and management, show potential applications as a stand-alone model, and discuss its technical and conceptual limitations that are yet to be overcome.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Connectivity at home: A data-driven connectivity modeling framework for home range movements in heterogeneous landscapes

The landscape connectivity of cities is increasingly recognized as crucial for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services. Yet, modelling ecological connectivity in cities remains challenging because landscape resistance is often based on expert judgment rather than empirical evidence, leading to varying modelling results and limited use for planning. We developed and tested a data-driven framework for empirically parametrizing resistance and movement-distance parameters in functional connectivity models from movement-proxy data - information on the presence/absence of animal movement from direct observation or camera traps. At each step, we ensured that the connectivity model reflected the behavioural and spatial properties of the observations. We applied the framework for the common blackbird (Turdus merula) in Munich, Germany. We used observations of flying blackbirds as movement-proxy data in a logistic regression framework, testing alternative combinations of resistance and movement distances. Model selection identified the parameter sets best supported by the data. The resulting parameters were validated using repeated out-of-sample validation and compared against an expert-based connectivity model. Connectivity derived from empirically estimated parameters increased the probability of observing flying blackbirds. Across repeated validations, the empirical model achieved a mean AUC of 0.76 and R2 of 0.17. It performed moderately better than the expert-based model. Depending on their height, buildings exhibited varying resistance to flying blackbirds. Results indicate that expert assessments may oversimplify urban barriers. The approach provides a transparent, reproducible framework for using movement-proxy data to derive maps of landscape resistance. It offers a step toward more data-driven urban connectivity modelling.

ecology↗