Categorizing wildlife responses to urbanization and conservation implications of terminology.

The study of urban ecology has emerged as a key element of conservation research (Miller & Hobbs 2002). Urbanization is a primary driver of habitat loss and fragmentation but also provides an opportunity to design and manage cities to retain biodiversity and facilitate interactions between people and the natural world (Miller 2005). As the field has developed, Blair’s (1996) avoider, adapter, exploiter terminology has become the primary means of characterizing wildlife responses to urbanization. These terms, which were further developed by McKinney (2002), have provided a useful framework for studying urban ecology since 1996. However, we believe this terminology has shortcomings that obscure ecological mechanisms that affect urban biodiversity. We describe the limitations of this framework and offer a modified set of terms to advance urban wildlife conservation.