Urban areas refer to human settlements with infrastructure of built environment, including concrete, brick, glass, paved roads. Such dense human settlements result with few vegetation and more exposed soil. Across the globe, these areas are growing exponentially. Comparing to the current cover of ca. 3% of total surface of the Earth land, the urban cover will increase several times in the next decades (Seto et al. 2012). All this to improve Homo sapiens living condition, which has been largely progressing since the transition from a hunter-gatherer nomadic life style to a settled urban life style.
Urbanization largely substitutes nature, resulting with a decline in biodiversity. Yet, within cities we still detect a pulsing life. City ponds and their surroundings are often hot spots for living creatures. However, increased temperature in urbanized spaces, generated by industry and built structures, often creates ideal conditions for worm-adapted invasive alien species. These alien invasives can be represented by pathogenic organisms which bring a harm to natives. Nonetheless, transformed urban spaces can host protected and endangered species because of, for example, fewer predators or pests. It is therefore crucial to gain knowledge on causes and consequences of ecological interactions and evolutionary processes that shape city biodiversity.
