Biomimicry in French Urban Projects: Trends and Perspectives from the Practice.

Biomimicry is a design framework with growing interests in sustainable architectural and urban design practice. Nevertheless, there is a significant lack of studies and knowledge regarding its practical application. In 2020, a French workgroup called Biomim'City Lab published a document identifying and describing 16 urban projects designed by French teams integrating biomimicry at various levels. Our research is an opportunistic study analyzing this data, aiming to identify trends and challenges in the French market. We analyzed the projects using a mixed-method approach, through quantitative typological analysis and qualitative narrative analysis. This sample of French projects indicates a trend of increasing interest in biomimicry on built space projects in France. Biomimicry was primarily applied at the façade/roof/soil systems, mostly using macroscopic models as ecosystems, plants, and animals. Designers declared to aim diverse objectives with the biomimetic approach; still, thermal comfort is the most recurrent in the sample. We also identified that challenges remain to foster the field application, as the lack of awareness of the urban fabric stakeholders on the topic and the gaps between research and design practice.

Urban ecology, stakeholders and the future of ecology.

The world human population is more and more urban and cities have a strong impact on the biosphere. This explains the development of urban ecology. In this context, the goal of our work is fourfold: to describe the diversity of scientific questions in urban ecology, show how these questions are organized, to assess how these questions can be built in close interactions with stakeholders, to better understand the role urban ecology can play within ecological sciences. A workshop with scientists from all relevant fields (from ecology to sociology) and stakeholders was organized by the Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB). Three types of scientific issues were outlined about (1) the biodiversity of organisms living in urban areas, (2) the functioning of urban organisms and ecosystems, (3) interactions between human societies and urban ecological systems. For all types of issues we outlined it was possible to distinguish both fundamental and applied scientific questions. This allowed building a unique research agenda encompassing all possible types of scientific issues in urban ecology. As all types of ecological and evolutionary questions can be asked in urban areas, urban ecology will likely be more and more influential in the development of ecology. Taken together, the future of towns, their biodiversity and the life of city dwellers is at stake. Increasing the space for ecosystems and biodiversity within towns is more and more viewed as crucial for the well-being of town dwellers. Depending on research and the way its results are taken into account, very different towns could emerge. Urban areas can be viewed as a test and a laboratory for the future of the interactions between human and ecological systems.

Predicting loss of evolutionary history: Where are we?

The Earth's evolutionary history is threatened by species loss in the current sixth mass extinction event in Earth's history. Such extinction events not only eliminate species but also their unique evolutionary histories. Here we review the expected loss of Earth's evolutionary history quantified by phylogenetic diversity (PD) and evolutionary distinctiveness (ED) at risk. Due to the general paucity of data, global evolutionary history losses have been predicted for only a few groups, such as mammals, birds, amphibians, plants, corals and fishes. Among these groups, there is now empirical support that extinction threats are clustered on the phylogeny; however this is not always a sufficient condition to cause higher loss of phylogenetic diversity in comparison to a scenario of random extinctions. Extinctions of the most evolutionarily distinct species and the shape of phylogenetic trees are additional factors that can elevate losses of evolutionary history. Consequently, impacts of species extinctions differ among groups and regions, and even if global losses are low within large groups, losses can be high among subgroups or within some regions. Further, we show that PD and ED are poorly protected by current conservation practices. While evolutionary history can be indirectly protected by current conservation schemes, optimizing its preservation requires integrating phylogenetic indices with those that capture rarity and extinction risk. Measures based on PD and ED could bring solutions to conservation issues, however they are still rarely used in practice, probably because the reasons to protect evolutionary history are not clear for practitioners or due to a lack of data. However, important advances have been made in the availability of phylogenetic trees and methods for their construction, as well as assessments of extinction risk. Some challenges remain, and looking forward, research should prioritize the assessment of expected PD and ED loss for more taxonomic groups and test the assumption that preserving ED and PD also protects rare species and ecosystem services. Such research will be useful to inform and guide the conservation of Earth's biodiversity and the services it provides.

Integrating data-deficient species in analyses of evolutionary history loss.

There is an increasing interest in measuring loss of phylogenetic diversity and evolutionary distinctiveness which together depict the evolutionary history of conservation interest. Those losses are assessed through the evolutionary relationships between species and species threat status or extinction probabilities. Yet, available information is not always sufficient to quantify the threat status of species that are then classified as data deficient. Data-deficient species are a crucial issue as they cause incomplete assessments of the loss of phylogenetic diversity and evolutionary distinctiveness. We aimed to explore the potential bias caused by data-deficient species in estimating four widely used indices: HEDGE, EDGE, PDloss, and Expected PDloss. Second, we tested four different widely applicable and multitaxa imputation methods and their potential to minimize the bias for those four indices. Two methods are based on a best- vs. worst-case extinction scenarios, one is based on the frequency distribution of threat status within a taxonomic group and one is based on correlates of extinction risks. We showed that data-deficient species led to important bias in predictions of evolutionary history loss (especially high underestimation when they were removed). This issue was particularly important when data-deficient species tended to be clustered in the tree of life. The imputation method based on correlates of extinction risks, especially geographic range size, had the best performance and enabled us to improve risk assessments. Solving threat status of DD species can fundamentally change our understanding of loss of phylogenetic diversity. We found that this loss could be substantially higher than previously found in amphibians, squamate reptiles, and carnivores. We also identified species that are of high priority for the conservation of evolutionary distinctiveness.

Interference competition between an invasive parakeet and native bird species at feeding sites.

Interference competition has proved to be a factor of successful establishment of invasive species. This type of competition may have a stronger impact when native species have temporal niche overlap with the invasive species. The ring-necked parakeet Psittacula krameri has been successfully introduced in many countries and its interspecific agonistic behavior has already been reported. The purpose of this study is to analyze the territorial and preemptive interference competition between the ring-necked parakeet and native bird species in a recently colonized area. We used an empirical approach by recording video sequences in gardens equipped with bird feeders in winter. Our results showed that the ring-necked parakeet was the most frequent species at the feeders. Several native species showed temporal niche overlap with the ring-necked parakeet, the highest overlap being with the starling Sturnus vulgaris. The starling was also the species most impacted by interference competition with the parakeet. Our study suggests that, by being most frequently present at the feeders, by demonstrating the most agonistic behavior and by hindering access to food of the other species, the ring-necked parakeet is a superior competitor and may compete with native bird species.

Invasion history and demographic processes associated with rapid morphological changes in the Red-whiskered bulbul established on tropical islands.

The Red-whiskered bulbul is a very successful invasive bird species. Morphological differences have been reported among individuals inhabiting the humid and dry coasts of Reunion Island, in a 30-year-old population. This suggests a capacity for rapid local adaptation which could explain the general invasive success of this species. However, the origin and invasion history of this population is unknown. It is therefore not possible to establish with certainty the cause of these morphological differences. Here, we investigated the invasion history of populations of Red-whiskered bulbul established on Reunion Island, Mauritius and Oahu (three geographically similar tropical islands) to assess the link between invasion history and morphological changes in these populations. We first assessed the source(s) of the invasive populations. We then compared the morphology of the individuals between the invasive and native populations and between the dry and humid coasts of invaded islands. Finally, we inferred the invasion history of the invasive populations to investigate the role of neutral processes (e.g. founder effect and drift) on morphology. We found that the invasive populations have a similar origin and that the morphology of the individuals in these populations has diverged in a similar way from the native range, suggesting a convergent adaptation to tropical islands. Like on Reunion, we found differences in morphology between the dry and humid coasts on Mauritius. These morphological differences can be explained by invasion history on Reunion but not on Mauritius. Both neutral evolution and adaptation thus shape the morphology of invasive Red-whiskered bulbuls.

Can starling eggs be useful as a biomonitoring tool to study organohalogenated contaminants on a worldwide scale?

Large-scale international monitoring studies are important to assess emission patterns and environmental distributions of organohalogenated contaminants (OHCs) on a worldwide scale. In this study, the presence of OHCs was investigated on three continents (Europe, North America and Australasia), using eggs of starlings (Sturnus vulgaris and Sturnus unicolor) to assess their suitability for large-scale monitoring studies. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study using bird eggs of the same species as a biomonitor for OHCs on an intercontinental scale. We found significant differences in OHC concentrations of the eggs among sampling locations, except for hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs). Mean concentrations of sum polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in eggs ranged from 78±26 ng/glipid weight (lw) in Australia to 2900±1300 ng/g lw in the United States. The PCB profile was dominated by CB 153 and CB 138 in all locations, except for New Zealand, where the contribution of CB 95, CB 101 and CB 149 was also high. The highest mean sum polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) concentrations were found in Canada (4400±830 ng/g lw), while the lowest mean PBDE concentrations were measured in Spain (3.7±0.1 ng/g lw). The PBDE profile in starling eggs was dominated by BDE 47 and BDE 99 in all countries, but in Belgium, the higher brominated PBDEs had a higher contribution compared to other countries. For the organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes (DDTs) ranged from 110±16 ng/g lw in France to 17,000±3400 ng/g lw in New Zealand, while HCHs and hexachlorobenzene were generally in low concentrations in all sampling locations. Chlordanes were remarkably high in eggs from the United States (2500±1300 ng/g lw). The OCP profile in all countries was largely dominated by p,p'-DDE. In general, the worldwide trends we observed in starling eggs were in accordance with the literature on human and environmental OHC data, which suggests that there is potential for using starling eggs as a biomonitoring tool on a large geographical scale.