Chasing Bats and Tracking Rats

CYLITA GUY, PhD is a Toronto-based ecologist, data scientist, and science communicator who studies bats. In her downtime, you can find your friendly neighborhood batgirl chasing her next big outdoor adventure.CORNELIA LI is a Chinese-born illustrator based in Toronto. She is intrigued by narrative weaved into daily interactions between people and their surroundings and sets out to capture this relationship by externalizing ideas and emotions into visual elements.

• Introduction: Living in the Urban JungleTalk Like an Urban Ecologist: Key TermsChapter 1: Chasing Down Big BrownsHow much do wildlife rely on city green spaces? Cylita Guy tracks bats in Toronto, Canada.Chapter 2: Ratmobile to the RescueHow do animals in cities affect human health? Kaylee Byers studies how rats move around Vancouver, Canada.Chapter 3: Bees and Bug VacuumWhy are cities a good place to study the impact of climate change on bees? Charlotte de Keyzer looks at what bees and the plants they pollinate can tell us about the effects of climate change in cities like Toronto, Canada.Chapter 4: Backyard Bear BuffetWhat happens when humans and wildlife in cities don’t get along? Jesse Popp gets to the bottom of human-bear conflict in Sudbury, Canada.Chapter 5: Bold Coyote, Bashful CoyoteHow are humans changing animal behavior in cities? Chris Schell studies coyote behavior in Utah and Washington, and looks at how human policies like redlining affect urban biodiversity.Chapter 6: Microplastics, Major ProblemsHow does the pollution we create affect city animals? Rachel Giles wades into Toronto’s waterways to discover the impacts of pollution on invertebrates.  Chapter 7: Birdwatching BiasWhat happens when citizen science doesn’t tell us the whole story? Deja Perkins asks how human bias can affect what we know about birds in cities like Durham, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh, North Carolina.   Chapter 8: A Bike to Beat the HeatWhy are greener cities better for people? Carly Ziter pedals around Madison, Wisconsin to track how trees cool cities. Conclusion: But this is only the beginning!AcknowledgmentsSelect SourcesIndex