Personalised ecology and detection functions

Abstract

1. Direct interactions with nature are important for people's health, well-being and support for pro-nature policies. There is an urgent need better to understand the structure and dynamics of these interactions, and how they differ among individual people, human populations and the communities to which they belong. 2. The determinants of these interactions have two components. First are the factors that influence whether someone undertakes actions that may lead to interactions with nature (e.g. looking through a window, going for a walk, travelling to the countryside). These factors have attracted significant attention. Second are the factors that influence what nature interactions are obtained when someone is present in a situation in which these could occur. These have received little explicit attention. 3. One way of formalizing understanding, and identifying gaps in knowledge, of the second group of factors is to consider human-nature interactions in terms of detection functions. Rather than using such functions for the estimation of species abundances, the purpose for which they were originally developed, they can be reorganized as descriptors of influences on people's nature interactions. 4. This paper considers how the different variables contained within detection functions influence human-nature interactions, and in particular how the number of nature interactions a person has in a given place and time is shaped both by clearly 'nature'-associated variables, such as the number of organisms present, and also by variables that are strongly influenced by characteristics of the observer, such as how they use or explore an area and their personal nature detection abilities. 5. Many issues explored in the context of human-nature interactions are then seen to concern these component variables of detection functions, and approaches to improving the frequency of interactions seen, in effect, to be targeted at affecting change in different ones of these variables.

Urban park soundscapes: Spatial and social factors influencing bird and traffic sound experiences

“…Gaston (2020) outlines the importance of detecting nature (typically through seeing or hearing) as a fundamental unit in all people‐nature interactions. Clayton et al (2017) further asserts that understanding the positive or negative emotional response of people is an integral component in an experience of nature.…”

The aesthetic value of reef fishes is globally mismatched to their conservation priorities

“…Although we believe our general conclusions should hold, we would presumably have found differences in individual scores had we compared respondents spanning a much larger breadth of cultural, social, or demographic backgrounds, or asked questions that would have triggered more cognitive processing. Addressing this would require a more balanced pool of respondents and opens interesting perspectives for future research in the framework proposed by “personalized ecology” [ 64 ].…”

Pathways linking biodiversity to human health: A conceptual framework

“…frequency, cumulative opportunity) do not capture the experiential aspects of biodiversity exposure-what we term as the experience of biodiversity. It is important to recognise that people may experience biodiversity differently (Gaston, 2020), and these experiential characteristics of contact with biodiversity may be highly relevant for any health effects (Frumkin et al, 2017). In this step, we consider the how biodiversity is experienced by people.…”

“…When analysing pathway mechanisms, it is crucial to assess how the environmental and socio-cultural context and individual characteristics may moderate the outcomes. Overall, more research is needed on people's contact with biodiversity (step 2) (Gaston, 2020). More research is needed on how differential exposures to biodiversity (Step 2.1) influence human health, in order to unravel 'dose-response' relationships.…”