The central research questions that guide the fifth phase of our research program are:
How are human-environment interactions mediated by urban ecological infrastructure to shape the social-ecological urban ecosystem — past, present and future?
How can we use knowledge of these relationships to inform more just, transformative and sustainable futures?
The overarching goal is to foster social-ecological urban research aimed at understanding urban ecosystems using a holistic, ecology of cities perspective while contributing to an ecology for and with cities approach to enhance urban sustainability.
We have six broad program objectives:
- Use ecological and social data to answer new questions requiring long-term perspectives.
- Develop and use models and scenarios through participatory, community-based strategies.
- Advance urban ecological theory while contributing new theories derived from transdisciplinary research.
- Promote and strengthen environmental justice using broadly inclusive approaches to CAP science and outreach.
- Build and use transdisciplinary partnerships to foster resilience and enhance sustainability in urban ecosystems while contributing to the education and well-being of urban dwellers of all types, ages and experiences.
- Adaptively manage CAP research and how work with communities of practice is framed.
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Conceptual model
Our CAPV conceptualization of the urban ecosystem reflects: (1) an enhanced focus on urban heterogeneity–both ecological and social–across various spatial scales in the urban landscape (from the parcel scale to the entire Central Arizona region, including Tribal Nations); (2) a more coordinated and interdisciplinary focus on our 12 key study neighborhoods and the people and parcels that comprise them; (3) enhanced partnerships and collaborations with our study neighborhoods and decision-makers in several municipalities in the metro area–which we call communities of practice; (4) a focus on human/environment interactions and feedbacks; and (5) our continued focus on Urban Ecological Infrastructure as a construct to connect social and ecological dynamics, but now with emphasis on a UEI hybridity gradient from the purely ecological to the largely built.
Virtual field trips
Follow CAP LTER researchers as they take you through their solutions-oriented, long-term projects throughout central Arizona. Learn about topics such as urban heat and design, wetlands, stormwater, scenarios and more.
LTER Network
Twenty-eight research sites constitute the LTER Network at present. The geographic distribution of sites ranges from Alaska to Antarctica and from the Caribbean to French Polynesia.
Long-term monitoring and experiments
Long-term monitoring and experiments are at the core of CAP LTER’s research program. They enable CAP scientists to examine changes over time, particularly in ecological variables that are slow cycling.
Interdisciplinary research themes
Our work is organized across five interdisciplinary research themes, each of which corresponds with one of our five research questions.
Ecosystem structure and functioning
Leads: Becky Ball, Nancy Grimm and Hilairy Hartnett
Research question: How do the collective activities of a heterogeneous urban population influence the structure and function of ecosystems at local to regional scales, including benefits and feedbacks to those people?
Adapting to city life
Leads: Heather Bateman, Chad Johnson and Christopher Schell
Research question: How do differences in organismal life-history traits, over short- and long-time scales, respond to and shape eco-evolutionary dynamics and evolutionary responses (e.g., via plasticity, adaptation) to human-induced changes in climate, resources and niche availability in urban environments?
Urban climate and air quality
Leads: Christina Fuller, David Hondula and Jennifer Vanos
Research question: What are the spatial and temporal relationships between heterogeneous urban ecological infrastructure and urban heat, air and water and how do urban ecological infrastructure influences on these parameters affect people, plants and animals?
Environment and human wellbeing
Leads: Jeffrey Clark, Paul Coseo and Michelle Hale
Research question: How can co-production with communities of practice integrate the multiple ways people experience nature–expressed through perceptions, management decisions and wellbeing–as it is shaped by the distribution of urban ecological infrastructure and associated ecosystem services and ecosystem disservices?
Governance and just transitions
Leads: Marta Berbés-Blázquez, Elizabeth Cook, David Iwaniec, Sara Meerow and Abigail York
Research question: How does governance — and associated institutions, values and knowledge — shape past, current and future transformational capacities and how do those capacities affect the (in)equitable distribution of urban ecological infrastructure and associated ecosystem services and ecosystem disservices?