In the February issue of the widely read journal, BioScience, sixteen BES authors have published a notable synthetic piece of research (Pickett et al. 2008). This paper integrates different disciplinary perspectives and approaches that are at work in BES. The paper is called “Beyond Urban Legends: An Emerging Framework of Urban Ecology, as Illustrated by the Baltimore Ecosystem Study.” This paper is published in volume 58, issue 2, pages 139-150 and has a digital object identifier (DOI) of 10.1641/B580208 in case you or your library have access to BioScience on line.
 

The phrase, urban legends, is part of the title because the paper reports results that were surprising or unexpected. Like the urban legends of popular culture, there are commonly held or unexamined assumptions in urban social-ecological studies. Such “legends” are taken on faith or are simply not noticed and therefore not criticized. Over our first ten years of work, BES has identified several such assumptions, and has provided empirical evidence to open up some important concepts of urban ecological studies as a developing field. These are not the only important things that have been discovered in BES, of course. However, they do represent the breadth of the work that goes on in our large and diverse project.
 

A brief summary of the findings that evaluate the urban legends is adapted from the paper (Figure 1). It shows how the dozen findings relate to the three overarching questions that guide BES. Of course more details are found in the paper, and we invite you to consult the published version for more information.
 

Figure 1. Summaries of the twelve urban legends debunked in the BioScience paper, arranged to correspond to the BES guiding question each addresses. Based on Pickett et al. (2008) with modifications.

Our findings suggest conceptual gradients along which urban systems can differ. For example, how does the balance between anthropogenic and natural control of ecosystem function change along urban-rural gradients? How does the balance shift between different cities, or different times in the development of a metropolitan area? As another example, is there a gradient of riparian sink function in urban systems, and across urban systems? These and the other ten gradients suggested by our results are the raw material for a framework for broader understanding of urban systems. And these discredited legends are not only important for the sake of intellectual curiosity. All have management and policy implications, and some have been put to use by policy and management colleagues in the Baltimore region and the Chesapeake Bay (Pickett et al. 2007).
 

I invite you to have a look at the BioScience article to see how urban legends have been questioned, and how they have been used to help advance synthesis in BES.
 

Literature Cited:
 

Pickett, S.T.A., K.T. Belt, M.F. Galvin, P.M. Groffman, J.M. Grove, D.C. Outen, R.V. Pouyat, W.P. Stack, and M.L. Cadenasso. 2007. Watersheds in Baltimore, Maryland: Understanding and application of integrated ecological and social processes. Journal of Contemporary Watershed Research and Application. 136:44-55.
 

Pickett, S.T.A., M.L. Cadenasso, J.M. Grove, P.M. Groffman, L.E. Band, C.G. Boone, G.S. Brush, W.R. Burch, Jr., J. Hom, J.C. Jenkins, N. Law, C.H. Nilon, R.V. Pouyat, K. Szlavecz, P.S. Warren, and M.A. Wilson. 2008. Beyond urban legends: An emerging framework of urban ecology as illustrated by the Baltimore Ecosystem Study. BioScience 58(2): 139-150.