Special Issue: Urban ecosystems: potentials, challenges, and solutions

n conclusion, the work highlighted above needs to be seen in the context of strengthening urban ecological research during the last decades (Barot et al., 2019). This underlines the importance of not only studying, but also actively shaping cities by exploiting their ecological potentials, despite any limitations and barriers. This issue demonstrates that creating, conserving, or restoring biodiverse urban ecosystems is possible, though it requires careful urban greenspace planning, design, management, maintenance, as well as information campaigns and restoration programs. Supporting and conserving urban nature will result in ecological improvements in close proximity to the majority of the earth's population, directly providing health and well-being benefits through contact with high-quality nature and indirectly by enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem service provisioning in and beyond urban areas. Thus, the importance of urban ecology for the successful development of our societies must be emphasised. We hope this Special Issue will help propagate and encourage the planning of more liveable cities that support both biodiversity and humans in the future .