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1. Effects of microclimate on disease prevalence across an urbanization gradient

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4313  

   Fox, Quinn_N; Farah, Keiko_N; Shaw, Olivia_S; Pollowitz, Michelle; Sánchez‐Conde, Armando; Goodson, Carrie; Penczykowski, Rachel_M (May 2024, Ecology)

   Abstract Increased temperatures associated with urbanization (the “urban heat island” effect) have been shown to impact a wide range of traits across diverse taxa. At the same time, climatic conditions vary at fine spatial scales within habitats due to factors including shade from shrubs, trees, and built structures. Patches of shade may function as microclimate refugia that allow species to occur in habitats where high temperatures and/or exposure to ultraviolet radiation would otherwise be prohibitive. However, the importance of shaded microhabitats for interactions between species across urbanized landscapes remains poorly understood. Weedy plants and their foliar pathogens are a tractable system for studying how multiple scales of climatic variation influence infection prevalence. Powdery mildew pathogens are particularly well suited to this work, as these fungi can be visibly diagnosed on leaf surfaces. We studied the effects of shaded microclimates on rates of powdery mildew infection onPlantagohost species in (1) “pandemic pivot” surveys in which undergraduate students recorded shade and infection status of thousands of plants along road verges in urban and suburban residential neighborhoods, (2) monthly surveys of plant populations in 22 parks along an urbanization gradient, and (3) a manipulative field experiment directly testing the effects of shade on the growth and transmission of powdery mildew. Together, our field survey results show strong positive effects of shade on mildew infection in wildPlantagopopulations across urban, suburban, and rural habitats. Our experiment suggests that this relationship is causal, where microclimate conditions associated with shade promote pathogen growth. Overall, infection prevalence increased with urbanization despite a negative association between urbanization and tree cover at the landscape scale. These findings highlight the importance of taking microclimate heterogeneity into account when establishing links between macroclimate or land use context and prevalence of disease. 

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2. Characterizing Anycast Flipping: Prevalence and Impact

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-85960-1_15  

   Zhang, Xiao; Lin, Shihan; Huang, Tingshan; Maggs, Bruce M; Schomp, Kyle; Yang, Xiaowei (March 2025, Springer Nature Switzerland)
3. The impact of temperature and decay in insecticide-treated net efficacy on malaria prevalence and control

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mbs.2022.108936  

   Ngonghala, Calistus N. (January 2023, Mathematical Biosciences)
4. The Impact of Rapid Urbanization and Public Housing Development on Urban Form and Density in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

   Larsen; Yeshitela; Mulatu; Seifu; Desta (April 2019, Land)

   Urban development is occurring in many Sub-Saharan Africa cities and rapid urbanization is underway in the East African city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In an effort to address urban poverty and increase homeownership opportunities for low and middle-income residents, the City Administration of Addis Ababa initiated a large-scale housing development project in 2005. The project has resulted in the completion of 175,000 units within the city with 132,000 more under construction. To understand the impacts of both rapid growth and the housing program’s impact on the city’s urban form, we compared the type and distribution of land uses in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, between 2006 with 2016 using hand-digitized, ortho-rectified satellite images in Geographic Information Systems (GISs). While residential density has increased, overall density has decreased from 109 people/ha to 98 people/ha. We found that between 2006 and 2016, land occupied by residential housing increased from 33% to 39% and the proportion of informal housing decreased from 57% to 38%. Reflecting the country’s economic prosperity, there was a dramatic increase in the presence of single family housing, particularly on the city’s western side. In 2006, only 1% of residential areas were occupied by high-rise condominiums (4 floors or greater) and this increased to 11% by 2016. The majority of the new, higher density residential developments are located near the eastern edges of the city and this outlying location has significant implications for residents, infrastructure construction, and future development. 

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5. A case study of implicit mentoring, its prevalence, and impact in Apache

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3540250.3549167  

   Feng, Zixuan; Chatterjee, Amreeta; Sarma, Anita; Ahmed, Iftekhar (November 2022, 30th ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering)