Es begann mit einer Idee: Können Pflanzen als „lebende Umweltsensoren“ dienen?
80 Millionen Datenpunkte später ist klar: Ja. Die neue Studie unserer Arbeitsgruppe zeigt, dass Beobachtungen – v.a. aus Flora Incognita – detaillierte Klima- und Bodenbedingungen in 326 europ. Städten widerspiegeln.

S. Tautenhahn et al. (2026) Nature Cities
„Urbanization signatures on climate and soils uncovered by crowd-sensed plants“
DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00378-9

#FloraIncognita #CitizenScience #UrbanEcology

Es begann mit einer Idee: Können Pflanzen als „lebende Umweltsensoren“ dienen?
80 Millionen Datenpunkte später ist klar: Ja. Die neue Studie unserer Arbeitsgruppe zeigt, dass Beobachtungen – v.a. aus Flora Incognita – detaillierte Klima- und Bodenbedingungen in 326 europ. Städten widerspiegeln.

S. Tautenhahn et al. (2026) Nature Cities
„Urbanization signatures on climate and soils uncovered by crowd-sensed plants“
DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00378-9

#FloraIncognita #CitizenScience #UrbanEcology

I caught up with this amazing science study published this month. When the UCLA campus in Southern California closed during the peak of the covid pandemic, the beaks of dark-eyed juncos (birds) on campus shifted to be more like the non-urban wild birds. Then, in the years afterwards, the birds shifted back to pre-covid urban beaks. It's microevolution caught in action.

Pam Yeh, the professor involved in the study, has been carefully studying junco evolution since grad school, and so was ideally placed to spot this subtle evolutionary shift.

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/bird-beaks-changed-shape-during-pandemic-junco
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2520996122

#birds #evolution #UrbanEcology #California

I caught up with this amazing science study published this month. When the UCLA campus in Southern California closed during the peak of the covid pandemic, the beaks of dark-eyed juncos (birds) on campus shifted to be more like the non-urban wild birds. Then, in the years afterwards, the birds shifted back to pre-covid urban beaks. It's microevolution caught in action.

Pam Yeh, the professor involved in the study, has been carefully studying junco evolution since grad school, and so was ideally placed to spot this subtle evolutionary shift.

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/bird-beaks-changed-shape-during-pandemic-junco
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2520996122

#birds #evolution #UrbanEcology #California

One of the sites at Travis Wetland where we set up our invertebrate sampling yesterday was in the new southern woods.

I helped with a planting day for this back in 2014, when it was still a wet field. Now, it feels like a real forest, with a canopy well above my head and lots of wild seedlings scattered about underneath. It's amazing how quickly trees grow when the ground is always wet.

Here are two photos of the same part of the wetland in September 2014, when trees were being planted, and now. It's like magic!

Many of the trees planted here were sourced from Pūtaringamotu, Riccarton Bush, the old growth fragment of kahikatea swamp forest in central Christchurch. Pūtaringamotu is a much drier site than it was when the city was founded so it's fantastic to see a new swamp forest emerging.

(Now we just need to rein in our carbon emissions to stop the impending sea level rise that will otherwise submerge all these sites in a few centuries.)

#UrbanEcology #ForestRestoration #wetland #nz #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #nature

Moths? You want moths? I've got moths!

This week I finished uploading to #iNaturalist my four nights of moth lighting at our house, which I do once a season. I got 65 moth species this Spring, including four new species for our garden.

Here are some of the highlights. I like how much diversity of forms and colours and textures are amongst moths. It's a shame that they're so underappreciated compared to their showy daytime relatives. NZ has some great moths.

(The moth names are in the alt-text.)

https://inaturalist.nz/observations?project_id=great-southern-bioblitz-2025-canterbury-waitaha&taxon_id=47157&user_id=jon_sullivan&verifiable=any

#mothodon #nz #Christchurch #insects #nature #UrbanEcology

Perhaps the biggest highlight of today's run up through the Ōtautahi Port Hills was just how many more korimako (NZ bellbirds) there are about now compared with when I started doing this survey.

I just checked and on my July 2017 run, I made 54 korimako observations. Today, on the same route, I made 249(!). That's just the mapped points. Some of today's observations were of about 50 birds singing at once.

Check out the two maps to see the big difference.

Huge credit here goes to the City Council Port Hills rangers and the volunteers of the Summit Road Society. Both groups have been helping the native forest to regenerate and have been controlling the pest mammals that eat the birds. It's working!

#UrbanEcology #EcologicalMonitoring #birds #nz#Christchurch #map#ChristchurchCityCouncil#SummitRoadSociety

Perhaps the biggest highlight of today's run up through the Ōtautahi Port Hills was just how many more korimako (NZ bellbirds) there are about now compared with when I started doing this survey.

I just checked and on my July 2017 run, I made 54 korimako observations. Today, on the same route, I made 249(!). That's just the mapped points. Some of today's observations were of about 50 birds singing at once.

Check out the two maps to see the big difference.

Huge credit here goes to the City Council Port Hills rangers and the volunteers of the Summit Road Society. Both groups have been helping the native forest to regenerate and have been controlling the pest mammals that eat the birds. It's working!

#UrbanEcology #EcologicalMonitoring #birds #nz#Christchurch #map#ChristchurchCityCouncil#SummitRoadSociety

Today I did my monthly biodiversity run up into the Port Hills of Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, NZ. That takes my out of the Cashmere suburbs through the planted native forest and grasslands of Victoria Park and up into the old growth and naturally regenerated native forest of Sugarloaf peak.

I've been doing this route monthly since 2016, mapping and counting out birds and butterflies and assorted plants and fungi.

Here are some of today's highlights.

I had a close encounter with a kererū, perched about 1 metre from me (always a treat): https://inaturalist.nz/observations/297848998

A kahukura (red admiral) was feeding from exotic Viburnum flowers: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/297849009

Some scarlet pouch fungi were lighting up the forest floor on Sugarloaf: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/297848989

The one taramea (Aciphylla subfabellata speargrass) that I know of is still up by the Summit Road and looking healthy: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/297848991

#nature#WildCounts#UrbanEcology #EcologicalMonitoring