Webinar Series on Urban Ecology @ BSF-IIHS Library Exhibition

BSF in collaboration with Mihir Kulkarni of the School of Environment and Sustainability IIHS, and the IIHS Library Team is excited to invite you to a webinar series on Urban Ecology. These webinars have been specially curated to offer a range of diverse approaches and perspectives to the emerging field of Urban Ecology. 

Traditionally, ecologists have focused on ‘pristine’ environments with minimal human impact to study biodiversity. However, with growing human population, urban centres are rapidly expanding globally, transforming natural landscapes and habitats, and significantly altering biodiversity patterns. The urban environment now stands as a novel, dynamic ecosystem, with urbanisation recognised as a pivotal force shaping global biodiversity. The process of urbanisation also intertwines with social and economic factors, creating complex interactions that demand our attention. Understanding urban ecological dynamics is crucial for developing strategies to mitigate biodiversity loss and promote nature conservation within cities, ultimately contributing to improved sustainability. Urban ecology addresses these challenges by studying ecology in, of, and for the city.

The first webinar in the series is on 28 Nov 2024 by Prof Nishant Kumar

Are cities “The Room of Requirement” for opportunistic animals? 

Globally, opportunistic taxa such as kites, macaques, street dogs, and livestock have adapted to living alongside humans, taking advantage of the ‘human niche’. While most humans occupy only 4% of Earth’s land in cities, their activities impact over 70% of the global environment. This has created a complex web of human-animal interactions, often characterised by tensions and conflicts. The speaker’s research in Delhi focuses on how these opportunistic scavengers exploit predictable food sources in urban areas, such as garbage dumps and ritual feeding sites. This influences behaviour in both animals and humans along the urban gradient. Historically, these interactions have provided benefits, but can also lead to problems like property damage, conflicts, and disease transmission.Notably, human-avian coexistence in South Asia represents a distinctive fusion of adopted Western infrastructure and unique Indian ethos. The webinar will look at why transdisciplinary research methodologies are indispensable for understanding and managing human-animal coexistence as we design more vibrant, “animated” tropical cities.

Nishant Kumar is faculty at Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi, and a DBT/Wellcome Trust UK India Alliance Fellow at Oxford University’s Biology Department (overseas host), where he completed his D.Phil. His team, THINKPAWS, studies resident and migratory commensals/wildlife in Delhi to understand human-animal interactions and zoonotic disease risks using a One Health approach. Nishant also promotes open science and innovative public engagement with science. He integrates natural and social sciences with humanities to address global challenges, fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration for human-animal coexistence.

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