Urban Ecology: documenting urban biodiversity and urbanization impacts in tropical ecosystems
Timothy C. Bonebrake, The University of Hong Kong
Louise A Ashton, The University of Hong Kong
Even YM Leung, The University of Hong Kong
Location: Hong Kong
Abstract
We integrated a CURE into our semester-long urban ecology course at The University of Hong Kong, which has an enrolment quota of 75 students. Working in groups of four to seven, mentored by the teaching staff and postgraduate teaching assistants, students designed and executed original research projects in Hong Kong urban ecosystems. Project topics varied widely based on student interest, ranging from surveying moth diversity in public toilets across an urban gradient to observing tree sparrow behavior and density at school canteens at different times of the day. Throughout the CURE, mentors guided students through iterations of the different steps of the research process, including (1) defining a research question, (2) reviewing literature, (3) designing feasible methodologies, (4) collecting data, (5) analyzing data, (6) synthesizing results, and (7) communicating science (through a poster presentation and a written paper). A poster symposium at the culmination of the course was open to all researchers in the department, sparking discussions and providing inspiration for future research. Student feedback indicated that they enjoyed the collaborative field work and poster symposium, which were seldom experienced in other coursework. Comparing pre-CURE and post-CURE questionnaires, students showed a positive gain in content knowledge, technical and analytic skills, collaborative research experience and a deeper appreciation for the complexities of both urban ecosystems and conducting research in these ecosystems.
Student Goals
- Critically evaluate existing literature to formulate testable research questions and hypotheses.
- Collect, analyze and interpret ecological data with relevance to urban ecology.
- Effectively communicate research findings in both oral poster presentations and written papers.
Research Goals
- Survey baseline biodiversity in tropical urban ecosystems.
- Understand and document the impacts of urbanization on ecological communities or taxa.
Context
This CURE was designed for students in ENVS3019 Urban Ecology at The University of Hong Kong. The course is a six-credit, one-semester course targeting primarily Year 3 and 4 undergraduate students majoring in Ecology & Biodiversity or Environmental Science. The enrollment quota is 75, and we had a total of 55 students in our first year of CURE implementation, in the first semester of the 2025 – 2026 academic year. We did not expect students to have mastered any particular research skill before conducting the CURE. However, students were expected to have foundational knowledge and prior experience in ecological data collection or environmental data analyses, which they learned from relevant pre-requisites and introductory level courses in the first two or three years of their studies.
Target Audience:Major
CURE Duration:A full term
CURE Design
The research theme at the heart of the CURE is urban ecology. To enhance project ownership and research interest, the specific project topic and design were unique to each group. We randomly divided students into groups of four to seven. This randomization promoted inclusivity and diversity, and encouraged students to exchange and complement each other's skillsets while collaborating with new peers. To ensure accessible and effective guidance, we assigned a specific postgraduate teaching assistant to each group according to their taxonomic or methodological expertise.
The overall CURE was structured into three phases, including (1) a planning phase (~3 weeks), (2) an experimental phase (~2 months), and (3) a dissemination phase (poster presentation and written paper). We emphasized the importance of the planning phase early on to allow adequate time for groups to settle on a feasible research question and methodology with the help of the teaching team. During the planning phase, we navigated through the nuances of the logistics of field data collection, such as ethical considerations and legal permits. To help students contextualize their topic with relevance to existing literature, we included an individual literature review assignment. Students screened through 100 abstracts to decide whether the article supports, refutes, or is irrelevant to their proposed hypotheses, followed by an in-depth discussion on two selected articles, one that supports and one that refutes their hypotheses.
During the experimental phase where data was collected and analyzed, we provided logistical support of lab space and research equipment, such as transects, bait traps and Winkler traps. Our postgraduate teaching assistants provided specific guidance to our students during field work and data analysis. Moreover, to ensure that all students are successful in achieving the goals of the CURE, we allocated formal, synchronous class time for group discussions, progress check-ins and statistics and coding troubleshooting sessions. This structure ensured that all groups receive regular and timely feedback in optimizing their methodology before moving into the dissemination phase.
As for the dissemination phase, we designed a poster symposium to simulate an academic conference. Students took turns as presenters, interacting with the audience (their peers and researchers of the department), as well as being the audience in evaluating their peers' work and giving constructive feedback. After the symposium, we encouraged students to incorporate presentation feedback into their individual written papers to improve their final output.
The theme of urban ecology naturally intersects ecological, socio-economic and political sectors, making citizens, environmental practitioners, conservationists, urban planners and policy-makers key external stakeholders. Within academia, fellow ecologists and researchers are also stakeholders outside the classroom who would be interested in learning about the student findings from this CURE. When designing the CURE, we emphasized the importance of real-world applications, ensuring that students framed their research questions with practical ecological implications and stakeholders in mind. Some of the groups also directly engaged with property owners related to their research, for permission purposes and also to open dialogues around urban biodiversity. To provide a platform for students to share their results, we invited other researchers and PIs in the department to attend the poster symposium, allowing students to interact with and discuss their research with the broader academic community.
Core Competencies: Analyzing and interpreting data, Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering), Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering), Planning and carrying out investigations
Nature of Research:Applied Research, Field Research
Tasks that Align Student and Research Goals
Student Goals ↓
- Complete an individual literature review assignment, which includes scientific articles that documented local or regional biodiversity baselines
- Identify data gaps regarding local urban biodiversity
- Formulate research questions involving the documentation of local urban biodiversity
- Complete an individual literature review assignment, which includes scientific articles that documented urbanization impacts on particular systems or taxa
- Identify data gaps regarding local urbanization impacts
- Formulate research questions testing urbanization impacts on particular systems or taxa
- Collect urban biodiversity data using established ecological protocols, such as point counts and transect surveys
- Collect urban biodiversity data using professional field apparatus, such as bait traps (for moths) and Winkler traps (for soil invertebrates)
- Compile and manage raw urban biodiversity data into clean datasets ready for subsequent analyses
- Describe urban biodiversity data using biodiversity metrics, such as alpha and beta diversity
- Analyze urban biodiversity data using appropriate statistical methods, such as GLMs and NMDS in R
- Collect ecological data using published ecological protocols, such as deploying plasticine caterpillars to detect changes in predation rates across urban gradients
- Collect biodiversity data using professional field apparatus, such as bait traps and Winkler traps
- Compile and manage raw biodiversity data into clean datasets ready for subsequent analyses
- Correlate biodiversity data with environmental variables that change with the urbanization gradient, such as vegetation cover and human population density
- Analyze biodiversity data using appropriate statistical methods under different urbanization gradients, such as GLMs and NMDS in R
- Visualize research findings about urban biodiversity on academic posters
- Present research findings to the audience during the poster symposium
- Synthesize research background, methods, results and discussion in the format of a scientific paper
- Visualize research findings about urbanization impacts on the specific study system on academic posters
- Present research findings to the audience during the poster symposium
- Synthesize research background, methods, results and discussion in the format of a scientific paper
Instructional Materials
1. Course syllabus
The course syllabus contains the course description, course schedule (with CURE integrated), brief description of CUREs, course policies and suggested readings.
2. CURE guidelines, schedule and considerations
The CURE guidelines, schedule and considerations provides an overview of the CURE, including key tasks and expectations for student learning outcomes. We especially provided detailed written instructions and guidelines on the planning phase, regarding considerations on practical logistics and feasibility when developing a research topic.
3. Topic submission
We asked students to submit their project topics early (not assessed), in the third week of the course, in the following format:
Group number:
Proposed group name:
Proposed topic:
Proposed methods (brief):
Permit and safety considerations:
External stakeholders to benefit:
We provided written comments on the Learning Management System (Moodle) and discussed the topics and methods with the groups in dedicated sessions in class.
Course syllabus (Acrobat (PDF) bytes Sep29 26)
CURE guidelines, schedule and considerations (Acrobat (PDF) bytes Sep29 26)
Assessment
Individual literature review assignment guidelines (Acrobat (PDF) bytes Sep29 26)
Group poster symposium guidelines (Acrobat (PDF) bytes Sep29 26)
Group poster symposium rubric (Acrobat (PDF) bytes Sep29 26)
Instructional Staffing
Two course instructors and six postgraduate teaching assistants were responsible for helping students with their CURE work. The two course instructors oversaw all groups, while each postgraduate teaching assistant was responsible for mentoring two groups. All mentors guided students through the entire CURE process, from project design and planning to project dissemination. Additionally, departmental researchers were invited to the poster session in interacting with groups and providing written, constructive feedback to students.
Author Experience
Timothy C. Bonebrake, The University of Hong Kong
We believe that research and teaching should go hand-in-hand in tertiary education, and a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) provides a unique platform to bridge the two. Scaling up data collection to an entire course of students allows us to fill data gaps in ecology, especially in tropical urban ecosystems where empirical data is relatively scarce. Pedagogically, there has been ample evidence on the positive effects of CURES in scientific literacy, environmental attitudes, inclusivity and career aspirations. Therefore, we developed and implemented this CURE targeting Urban Ecology students in Hong Kong.
Advice for Implementation
1. Allow flexibility in student project design. This enhances overall enthusiasm and project ownership as students worked on systems/taxa that they are passionate about and familiar with.
2. Provide adequate tailored mentorship. We allocated group-specific mentors whose expertise best matched the group's topic. In this way, the mentors could provide specific guidance and assistance throughout the different steps of research, especially on research design and data analysis, which students reflected that they needed most help with.
3. Encourage peer mentoring and collaborative teaching. We provided peer feedback forms at the poster presentation so that both the presenters and the audience can benefit. The presenters benefit from the constructive feedback that their peers gave, while the audience had dedicated tasks to do while interacting with their peers. Students reflected that they really enjoyed the symposium, especially when they got to appreciate other groups' hard work.
4. Facilitate access to equipment early. We had few issues with equipment availability thanks to facilities maintained by the instructors and the department. However, some students expressed a desire for earlier access to equipment to extend the duration of the data collection process. In future courses, we will arrange a clear and transparent process for equipment check-out.
Iteration
Students trialed and re-tried approaches through every step of the research. We provided flexibility in time regarding the planning and experimental phases of the CURE, so that students could trouble-shoot and adapt when they "failed" scientifically. Some groups only finalized their methods after a pilot test. Some groups decided to change their topics entirely (after the submission of their topics) after discussing with their mentors. We allocated extra time in class for groups to work on their CUREs with the presence of the teaching team and their mentors, and students found it particularly useful when mentors guided them through selecting the appropriate statistical tests, and debugging codes. The incorporation of feedback from the poster presentation into their final written report allowed students to revise their drafts and improve the quality of their written report.
Using CURE Data
Students' findings were shared with the department at the poster symposium and the CURE will be presented in future teaching and learning events at the university. Teaching materials and selected posters will be shared on the instructors' website. Although most data were not ready for publication in the first year of our CURE implementation, if applicable, we may share past topics and data with the next cohort of students to seek further development on the projects in building more robust, cross-year datasets. All students, instructors and mentors who have contributed to the project will be co-authors in any resulting publications.
Resources
For instructors and students on urban ecology:
1. Bonebrake, T. C., Tsang, T. P., Yu, N., Wang, Y., Ledger, M. J., Tilley, H. B., ... & Ashton, L. A. (2025). Tropical cities as windows into the ecosystems of our present and future. Biotropica, 57(1), e13369.
2. Hau, B. C., Dudgeon, D., & Corlett, R. T. (2005). Beyond Singapore: Hong Kong and Asian biodiversity. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 20(6), 281-282.
3. McKinney, M. L. (2008). Effects of urbanization on species richness: a review of plants and animals. Urban ecosystems, 11(2), 161-176.
4. Chan, M., Tsang, T. P., Dingle, C., Early, R., Sorte, C. J., & Bonebrake, T. C. (2024). Microhabitat coverage influences avian species composition more than habitat heterogeneity in Hong Kong urban parks. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 101, 128519.
5. Pickett, S. T., Cadenasso, M. L., Grove, J. M., Boone, C. G., Groffman, P. M., Irwin, E., ... & Warren, P. (2011). Urban ecological systems: Scientific foundations and a decade of progress. Journal of Environmental Management, 92(3), 331-362.
6. Rega-Brodsky, C. C., Aronson, M. F., Piana, M. R., Carpenter, E. S., Hahs, A. K., Herrera-Montes, A., ... & Nilon, C. H. (2022). Urban biodiversity: State of the science and future directions. Urban Ecosystems, 25(4), 1083-1096.
For instructors implementing a CURE on urban ecology:
1. Flaherty, E. A., Walker, S. M., Forrester, J. H., & Ben‐David, M. (2017). Effects of course‐based undergraduate research experiences (CURE) on wildlife students. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 41(4), 701-711.
2. Auchincloss, L. C., Laursen, S. L., Branchaw, J. L., Eagan, K., Graham, M., Hanauer, D. I., ... & Dolan, E. L. (2014). Assessment of course-based undergraduate research experiences: a meeting report. CBE Life Sciences Education, 13(1), 29–40.
3. Valliere, J. M. (2022). Cultivating scientific literacy and a sense of place through course‐based urban ecology research. Ecology and Evolution, 12(6), e8985.
4. Funkhouser, J. A., Gregory, M., & Sanz, C. (2024). Promoting inclusivity in ecology, evolution, and behavioral biology education through course-based undergraduate research experiences. BioScience, 74(8), 567-576.
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