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Urban biodiversity provides critical ecosystem services and is a key component to environmentally and socially sustainable cities. However, biodiversity varies greatly within and among cities, leading to human communities with changing and unequal experiences with nature. The "luxury effect," a hypothesis that predicts a positive correlation between wealth, typically measured by per capita income, and species richness may be one indication of these inequities. While the luxury effect is well studied for some taxa, it has rarely been investigated for mammals, which provide unique ecosystem services (e.g., biological pest control) and exhibit significant potential for negative human-wildlife interactions (e.g., nuisances or conflicts). We analyzed a large dataset of mammal detections across 20 North American cities to test whether the luxury effect is consistent for medium- to large-sized terrestrial mammals across diverse urban contexts. Overall, support for the luxury effect, as indicated by per capita income, was inconsistent; we found evidence of a luxury effect in approximately half of our study cities. Species richness was, however, highly and negatively correlated with urban intensity in most cities. We thus suggest that economic factors play an important role in shaping urban mammal communities for some cities and species, but that the strongest driver of urban mammal diversity is urban intensity. To better understand the complexity of urban ecosystems, ecologists and social scientists must consider the social and political factors that drive inequitable human experiences with nature in cities.

Human activity affects plant and animal populations across local to global scales, and the management of recreation areas often aims to reduce such impacts. Specifically, by understanding patterns of human activity and its influence on animal populations, parks and recreation areas can be managed to provide spatial and temporal refuge to wildlife most sensitive to this type of human disturbance. However, additional research is necessary to understand how human activity influences wildlife populations, habitat use, and activity patterns for a diversity of wildlife species. We studied the potential impacts of human activity (as measured by nonmotorized recreationists) on populations and activity patterns of 12 mammal species, including herbivores and carnivores, from 63 motion‐activated cameras that sampled game trails and human trails with varying degrees of human activity along the Front Range of Colorado. Human activity was greatest during the day and minimal or absent during the night. All wildlife species in our study used human trails, although the extent to which human recreation altered the occupancy, relative habitat use, and activity patterns of wildlife varied across species, where some animals appeared to be more influenced by human activity than others. Some species (e.g., fox squirrel, red fox, and striped skunk) did not demonstrate a response to human activity. Other species (e.g., black bear, coyote, and mule deer) altered their activity patterns on recreation trails to be more active at night. Across all wildlife, the degree to which animals altered activity patterns on human trails was related to their natural activity patterns and how active they were during the day when human activity was greatest; species that exhibited greater overlap in natural activity patterns with humans demonstrated the greatest shifts in their activity, often exhibiting increased nocturnal activity. Further, some species (e.g., Abert’s squirrel, bobcat, and mountain lion) exhibited reduced occupancy and/or habitat use in response to human recreation. Managing spatial and temporal refuges for wildlife would likely reduce the impacts of human recreation on animals that use habitat in proximity to trail networks.

Free-ranging domestic cats (Felis catus) incur and impose risks on ecosystems and represent a complex issue of critical importance to biodiversity conservation and cat and human health globally. Prior social science research on this topic is limited and has emphasized feral cats even though owned cats often comprise a large proportion of the outdoor cat population, particularly in urban areas. To address this gap, we examined public risk perceptions and attitudes toward outdoor pet cats across varying levels of urbanization, including along the wildland-urban interface, in Colorado (U.S.A.), through a mail survey of 1397 residents. Residents did not view all types of risks uniformly. They viewed risks of cat predation on wildlife and carnivore predation on cats as more likely than disease-related risks. Additionally, risk perceptions were related to attitudes, prior experiences with cats and cat-wildlife interactions, and cat-owner behavior. Our findings suggest that changes in risk perceptions may result in behavior change. Therefore, knowledge of cat-related risk perceptions and attitudes could be used to develop communication programs aimed at promoting risk-aversive behaviors among cat owners and cat-management strategies that are acceptable to the public and that directly advance the conservation of native species.