EAGER: Linking Crow Roosting Behavior with Nitrogen Biogeochemistry in Urban Ecosystems

地球的城市化速度正在加快，目前有一半以上的人口居住在城市。人类的土地利用和资源消耗对城市、区域和全球尺度的自然格局和过程产生深远影响。 虽然人类显然是城市生态系统的主要驱动力，但生活在城市中的动物也可以发挥重要作用。例如，动物将化学品从人类食物来源转移到原本与世隔绝的城市森林中，可能会产生独特的化学热点，造成多种潜在后果。即便如此，很少有研究将化学物质的运动与城市野生动物种群的行为和动态联系起来。这个项目将探索美国乌鸦的筑巢行为和氮的运动之间的联系，在纽约中部的许多中小城市创造热点。该项目将招募当地代表性不足的少数民族学生，该项目还将邀请公民科学家参与，并提高公众对人与自然关系的认识。该项目还将为当地城市管理人员和县水土保持管理人员提供科学基础。这个项目的中心假设是，当城市化的美国乌鸦种群觅食人类补贴的食物来源和栖息在城市森林斑块的高密度，他们创造高？有时是间歇性的氮素供应。这改变了森林碎片中氮循环的模式，影响了反硝化和氮淋溶的关键生态系统过程，并造成局部水和空气污染。这项研究提出了两个主要问题。第一，乌鸦栖息地的分布及其与城镇的联系是什么？第二，从乌鸦栖息地输入的高浓度氮的生态地球化学后果是什么？这项研究将调查乌鸦行为（包括觅食、栖息和排便）与地球化学热点形成之间的新联系。它将比较和对比热点和没有集中鸟类活动的城市地点之间的氮转化和转移。它将研究模式和机制调节不同途径的氮损失（淋溶与反硝化）和各种潜在的最终形式的氮气和溶解损失在城市热点接收脉冲，集中的氮输入。最后，它将通过整合人口和生态系统水平的研究，超越人类和树木的通常焦点，推进城市生态研究。该项目将研究动物物种如何影响生态系统功能的基本方面，在空间异质性城市景观（由人类土地利用决策驱动）和补充能源和材料（由人类食物消费驱动）的新背景下。

The earth has become urbanized at an accelerating rate, with more than half of its population now living in cities. Human land use and resource consumption have profound impacts on the natural patterns and processes at the city, region, and global scales. But while humans are clearly the dominant drivers of urban ecosystems, animals living in cities can also play important roles. For example, movement of chemicals from human food sources into otherwise isolated urban forests by animals can produce unique chemical hot spots with multiple potential consequences. Even so, very few studies have linked the movement of chemicals with the behavior and dynamics of urban wildlife populations. This project will explore the links between the nesting behavior of American crows and the movement of nitrogen to create hotspots in the many small to medium sized cities in central New York. Under-represented minority students from local areas will be recruited for the project, which will also involve citizen scientists and lead to increased public awareness of human-nature connections. The project will also provide a base of science to local city managers and county soil and water conservation managers. The central hypothesis of this project is that when urbanized American crow populations forage on human-subsidized food sources and roost in high densities in urban forest patches, they create high ? and sometimes episodic - nitrogen availability. That changes the pattern of nitrogen cycling in the forest fragments, affects critical ecosystem processes of denitrification and nitrogen leaching, and causes localized water and air pollution. This study poses two main questions. First, what is the distribution of crow roosts and its association with cities and towns? Second, what are the biogeochemical consequences of concentrated N input from crow roosts? The study will investigate a novel linkage between crow behavior, including foraging, roosting and defecating, and the formation of biogeochemical hot spots. It will compare and contrast nitrogen transformations and transfers between the hot spots and urban sites without concentrated bird activities. It will examine the patterns and mechanisms regulating different pathways of N loss (leaching vs. denitrification) and various potential end forms of nitrogen gas and dissolved losses in urban hot spots receiving pulsed, concentrated N input. Finally, it will advance urban ecological research by integrating population and ecosystem level studies beyond the usual foci of humans and trees. The project will examine fundamental aspects of how animal species affect ecosystem function in the novel context of a spatially heterogeneous urban landscape (driven by human land use decisions) and supplemental energy and material (driven by human food consumption).