Urbanisation is a leading cause of global biodiversity loss, imposing the most rapid and ecologically damaging impacts of any human driven land-use change. Despite the trend of biodiversity decline, urban nature provides many benefits to city dwellers, from clean air and reduced heat to increased workforce productivity, lower rates of heart disease, and improved mental health. Hence, there is an urgent need to return nature to cities not only to conserve biodiversity, but also to maintain human experiences of urban nature. To meet this challenge, there are currently significant global attempts to re-green cities to improve environmental condition, including restoring biodiversity habitat.

To achieve this, urban land managers worldwide are spending millions of dollars on a wide array of popular but largely untested initiatives, addressing the loss of key habitat attributes through the installation of artificial habitats such as nest boxes, shelter sites and refuges (e.g. logs, rocks, and artificial structures). Despite their widespread appeal, the current implementation of these techniques is ad hoc, and the consideration of ecology in their design or management is often limited.

My research addresses this knowledge gap, by developing evidence-informed approaches to urban habitat restoration and identifying what potential trade-offs or conflicts may occur. My research examines ecological and social factors that shape urban biodiversity across a range of urban land uses including parks and golf courses, streetscapes, and backyards, and I will present findings that utilise a combination of ecological and social techniques. This research highlights the need for an interdisciplinary approach to understand the ecology of cities and demonstrates that novel approaches to biodiversity conservation are required to strike a balance between good outcomes for urban biodiversity whilst engaging urban communities.