Urban Food Webs: Predators, Prey, and the People Who Feed Them

Abstract

A prevailing image of the city is of the steel and concrete downtown skyline. The more common experienceof urban residents, however, is a place of irrigated and fertilized green spaces, such as yards, gardens, and parks, surrounding homes and businesseswhere people commonly feed birds, squirrels, and other wildlife. Within these highly human-modified environments, researchers are becoming increasingly curious about how fundamental ecological phenomenaplay out, such as the feeding relationships among species. While food webs have long provided a tool for organizing information about feeding relationshipsand energy flows through natural habitats, they have not been applied to urban ecosystems until recently(Faeth et al. 2005)...