Defining and building sustainable and resilient cities is necessary for human survival. Doing so requires generating new knowledge, including urban ecological science to inform city development and facilitate knowledge-to-action. Moving forward, practitioners and ecologists will need to integrate ecological research with design, planning and infrastructure. In pursuit of these goals, we use a transformative approach, termed designed experiments–defined as projects that embed ecological research with urban design to study and shape human settlements. Designed experiments redefine the relationship between ecologist and designer. Working collaboratively through design, gaps between knowledge and practice are bridged, thus advancing, in a concerted and coordinated manner, efforts to study and shape urban ecosystems. The ecologist in this context is re-positioned as an active participant in the design process, working collaboratively with designers from the start and through to the post-construction phase, including the ongoing assessment of the built results. The design process expands opportunities to integrate experiments into urban spaces that can further enrich ecological understanding and expand the conception of urban space. For the designer, the incorporation of experimentation into design establishes a legitimate synergy with ecological science that goes beyond the metaphorical and supports the development of a platform for experiential learning. Embracing the shifting roles of ecologists and designers whereby, through an iterative process each participant can deconstruct disciplinary barriers and increase integration, we present on a series of real-world designed experiments built in the United States illustrating the translation and application of evidence-based design.

The mainland subspecies of black-footed tree-rat (Mesembriomys gouldii gouldii) exhibits declines across its range, including Australia’s largest national park (Kakadu), yet remains persistent in localities in the Northern Territory inclusive of fragmented landscape such as the greater Darwin area. This study examines the functionality of species distribution modelling (SDM) to reveal key drivers for tree-rat presence in this urban context using existing species presence and absence data together with fine scale spatial data.

Generalised linear modelling (GLM) was used to examine the predictive capacity for explanatory variables inclusive of fire history and landscape metrics reflective of the degree of habitat fragmentation. The best model was selected using an information theoretic approach for evaluation.

The ‘best’ model had a less than moderate capacity to discriminate tree-rat presence/absence. A lack of strong explanatory variables for species presence is in part due to limitations with the data and also the generalist nature of the species.

Although predictive mapping from this study is of limited accuracy it is sufficient, with further evaluation, to rank sites in terms of relative habitat value and capture the shape of environmental relationships explaining species occurrence. The modelling indicates tree-rats are more often associated with the fragmented landscape which provide as infrequently burnt refuges, in contrast to the continuous habitat which is frequently and extensively burnt.

This study demonstrates that an exploratory SDM, with consideration of caveats, may inform future surveys and broad management priorities. Reducing fire frequency and protecting existing refuges is critical to conserving this endangered sub-species.

Over the past 150 years, use of artificial light at night has become a global and increasing issue. To reduce negative effects on sleep in humans, most smartphones and computers now have software to reduce emission of blue light in the evening. However, little is known about whether this approach could be beneficial for wildlife. We investigated the effects of white streetlights (3700K) and amber streetlights (2100K, filtered to minimise blue wavelengths) on nocturnal rest in a diurnal urban bird, the black swan. We used tri-axial accelerometry to record the activity patterns of swans exposed to streetlights in a naturalistic, outdoor environment. Contrary to predictions, we found that exposure to amber streetlights significantly decreased nocturnal rest compared with dark control conditions, whereas white streetlights did not. Importantly, by recording the electrophysiology of a subset of swans, we also found that time spent resting was strongly correlated with sleep. Our results indicate that artificial lighting can disrupt sleep in wildlife and that blue-filtering streetlights may not mitigate these impacts for birds.

Urban green spaces deliver a remarkable range of human well-being benefits. Appreciation of these benefits has spurred enthusiasm for urban greening in cities around the world. There is a strong desire for planning and landscape practitioners to understand the best ways to incorporate urban greening into the design of cities. Landscape preference studies using images are frequently conducted to understand people’s perception of different types of green space. However, many of these studies ignore the role of context on peoples’ responses.

We use a workflow practice inspired by advertising and marketing research to examine the role of image background in influencing people’s emotional responses to small green space interventions. We show that there can be as much as a 60% difference in participant emotional response to the same small green space intervention due to a change in image background. I will discuss our results and the importance of pre-testing image content in light of past landscape preference studies, future research and highlight the implications of this research for urban design.

Increasing urbanisation has led to significant decline of old-growth forests in subtropical Eastern Australia, resulting in the loss of vital habitat for native wildlife. With eucalypt trees taking over 150 years to develop hollows naturally, there is an urgent need for effective alternatives in areas lacking natural hollows. Plywood nest boxes are frequently installed, but now a new option is being developed - the carving of hollows into trees using chainsaws. This investigation sought patterns in hollow use by different fauna groups, as well as assessing efficiency of carved hollows in enhancing habitat value. Occupancy data of 177 hollows, collected through inspections by Habi-Tec, were collated with broad vegetation and tree characteristics, as well as geographic factors, such as nearest regional ecosystem classification and proximity to wildlife corridor. To compare thermal microclimates between carved hollows and plywood nest boxes, temperature loggers were deployed inside eight pairs of such cavities. Ultimately, wherever the hollows were being installed, they were being utilised, with a maximum uptake of 95% in urban areas. The most prolific use of carved hollows was by lorikeets in 65 hollows, followed by petaurid gliders in 42 hollows. In terms of microclimates, carved hollows consistently experienced lower maximum temperatures and less daily thermal fluctuation. These results indicate the ability for carved hollows to better mimic natural hollows than nest boxes, and thus provide a more effective offset option in suitable trees. However, the priority should always be to preserve old-growth trees containing the optimal wildlife habitat of natural hollows.

The construction and maintenance of the ecological networks that underpin urban biodiversity has received relatively little attention. Urban greening for habitat construction often involves manipulation of lower trophic levels with the expectation that higher trophic levels will adjust or be attracted to our designed plant assemblages. Urban greening, particularly when using exotic species, brings together completely novel plant and insect partners, generating surprising friends and unexpected consequences. Few studies have documented how plants and insects are interacting in the urban context, and how these interactions may change depending on a range of site-specific and landscape aspects. Here we use an experimental approach to determine how urban context influences plant-insect interactions using a dataset collected in Munich, Germany. Using a set layout of 5 functionally distinct flowering plant species, we measured how different groups of insects (beetles, bugs, wasps, ants, bumblebees, honeybees and small bees) interacted with our plant ‘phytometres’ across 100 urban public squares which differed in their local and landscape attributes. We then derived network-level measures of these experimental plant-insect communities (i.e. connectance, specialisation, and modularity) and correlated these with site attributes such as ground surface, canopy cover and flower density. For example, our results suggest a trend toward increased specialisation in the inner city compared to outer city sites. We discuss the implications of these changes in network metrics for biodiversity maintenance in urban green spaces.

Small plants and other organisms that live in close association with their substrate have unique characteristics that may be exploited in numerous applications. These plants include moss and the biocrust organisms they associate with such as cyanobacteria, lichen, fungi, algae and bacteria. Moss is already used for biomonitoring due to its capacity to bioaccumulate (accumulate certain elements within its tissue) but due to many traits, including desiccation tolerance, there may be other potential applications in the urban environment, restoration, pollution monitoring and control. A biocrust is a community of organisms living together at the soil surface that cycles carbon and nitrogen, retains water and prevents soil erosion. These traits could be exploited in numerous ways: 1) in urban greening of small spaces such as green roofs, laneways, street verges and informal green spaces - where they can provide ecosystem services such as stormwater management and facilitation of vascular plants; 2) they can boost the small scale biodiversity of small wild places where soil, microbes, plants, invertebrates, birds can persist in spaces not traditionally considered as habitat; 3) in greening buildings that are bioreceptive, increasing ecosystem services; 4) they may enhance ecological restoration to renew disturbed land; 5) in phytoremediation by trapping particulate matter thereby improving air quality. Moss-dominated biocrusts are relatively underexplored for applications beyond bioaccumulation and dry zone restoration. This review examines other options and raises some of the limitations and research questions - including cultivation - surrounding this field.