UCLA

Urbanization, characterized by the rapid growth of human development and resource consumption, not only replaces preexisting habitats but can also convert entire landscapes and their associated ecological services. As a result, these areas provide researchers with opportunities to study how wildlife species respond to novel habitat scenarios. In Chapter 1, we directly compared the House Sparrow’s (Passer domesticus) success among different habitat typologies in its native and non-native distributions. We related their numbers to environmental variables describing vegetation structure, urban infrastructure, and human activity. Our results are not only consistent with previous reports but also reveal some useful insights for the development of population management tools. In Chapter 2, we assessed the feasibility of using Google Street View as an ecological tool for gathering environmental data in different urban areas and typologies. Our results provide an optimistic look for GSV’s utilization as a powerful tool in the field of ecology.