About us
The GfÖ-Specialist Group Urban Ecology focuses on the importance of urban areas for nature and people. The Specialist Group invites all scientists and practitioners who investigate, plan, or design urban areas to interact and exchange experience. Today, cities are faced with huge environmental, economic, and social challenges. These include—but are not limited to—declines in biodiversity, extreme weather events, various land-use conflicts, and the loss of human-nature experience. All of these factors deplete the provision of urban ecosystem services, upon which the liveability of the world’s cities and the well-being of their residents depend. Therefore, the Specialist Group aims to contribute our knowledge of the multi-faceted drivers and interactions in urban areas to a sustainable management and use of urban ecosystems for the wellbeing of both people and nature.
Specifically, the Specialist Group Urban Ecology aims to
- hold regular urban ecology sessions at GfÖ Annual Meetings;
- invite keynote speakers to present their inspiring research and novel ideas at GfÖ Annual Meetings;
- cooperate with urban ecological science groups in other countries;
- organize special issues on urban ecology topics in Basic and Applied Ecology and other related journals;
- offer workshops and meetings on specific urban ecology topics supplementing our sessions at GfÖ Annual Meetings;
- provide an interdisciplinary platform for everyone interested in urban ecology to share ideas and initiate cooperation;
- engage in science communication and outreach.
Team
The Specialist Group Urban Ecology is coordinated by
Prof. Dr. Monika Egerer
Technical University of Munich
TUM School of Life Sciences
Dept. of Life Science Systems
Urban productive Ecosystems
Prof. Dr. Leonie K. Fischer
University of Stuttgart
Faculty Architecture and Urban Planning
Institute of Landscape Planning and Ecology (ILPÖ)
Dr. Sonja Knapp
Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ
Department Community Ecology
Macroecology & Vegetation Science group
Prof. Dr. Valentin Klaus
Ruhr-Universtiy of Bochum
Institut of Geography
Urban ecology and Biodiversity
News
This year, Somidh Saha (Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), KIT Karlsruhe) cordially invites all members of the GfÖ-Specialist Group Urban Ecology and other interested members of GfÖ to join his group on 2025-07-04 in Karlsruhe for the annual urban ecology excursion. His group will showcase their experiments and initiatives from the URBORETUM and UT-UBGI projects. The excursion will start in Karlsruhe at 10:00 AM and conclude by 5:00 PM. It will focus on the biology and ecophysiology of city trees, the trade-offs and synergies of ecosystem services, arboriculture, urban silviculture, and stakeholder engagement in managing urban and peri-urban forests. The excursion will be organized by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the City Horticulture Department (Gartenbauamt) of the City of Karlsruhe. Registration deadline is 2025-04-15 (
URBORETUM: https://www.urboretum.de/english/index.php
UT-UBGI: https://www.itas.kit.edu/english/projects_saha24_utubgi.php
New Special Issue in Basic and Applied Ecology: “Recent Advances in Urban Ecology: Biodiversity, Functions, and Perceptions related to Urban Nature” (Submission deadline: 31 July 2025). In this special issue, we collect and discuss insights and experiences from recent urban ecological research. Manuscripts can refer to any type of urban habitat (gardens, green spaces, forests, or others), urban nature overall, or human-nature interactions such as ecosystem services found in an urban context.
