Urban development is among the most pervasive and ubiquitous forms of land cover change. Thus, urbanization poses significant challenges to many organisms, including humans. This course will focus on the global urbanization and urban developmental impacts on the 1) patterns of abundance and distribution of organisms in urban ecosystems; 2) the interactions among organisms in the urban environment; 3) the interactions between humans (and societies) and nature in urban environments; and 4) some aspects of urban planning as it relates to ecology and the environment.