Journal
BIOSCIENCE
Volume 64, Issue 5, Pages 429-437Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biu039
Keywords
fire; fragmentation; invasive species; wildland-urban interface; wildlife
Categories
Funding
- US Forest Service Northern
- Rocky Mountains Research Stations
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The wildland-urban interface (WUI) is the area in which human settlements adjoin or intermix with ecosystems. Although research on the WUI has been focused on wildfire risk to settlements, we argue here that there is a need to quantify the extent of areas in which human settlements interact with adjoining ecosystems, regardless of their ability to support fire spread. Besides wildfires, human settlements affect neighboring ecosystems through biotic processes, including exotic species introduction, wildlife subsidization, disease transfer, landcover conversion, fragmentation, and habitat loss. The effects of WUI settlements on ecosystems are two tiered, starting with habitat modification and fragmentation and progressing to various diffusion processes in which direct and indirect effects of anthropogenic activities spread into neighboring ecosystems at varying scales. New scientific, management, and policy tools are needed in order to better understand the WUI as a unique social-ecological zone and to mitigate negative consequences of its continued growth.
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