Conclusions

The luxury effect for urban wildlife manifests as strong selection by black-tailed deer for landscape features associated with wealth which provide resource subsidies. Large residential lots of the wealthy had the greatest positive effect on urban deer habitat selection, in combination with protected green spaces and golf courses and with a smaller effect of smaller residential lots. Our research illuminates some of the mechanisms of the luxury effect of urban wildlife observed across the globe, which are driven by subsidies of water and vegetation (Chamberlain, Henry, Reynolds, Caprio and Amar 2019, Leong, Dunn and Trautwein 2018, Magle, Fidino, Sander, Rohnke, Larson, Gallo, Kay, Lehrer, Murray and Adalsteinsson 2021). Here, the conversion of historical drought-resistant Garry oak ecosystems into lush and landscaped urban environments have altered deer selection. The consequences for biodiversity more generally remains unknown; we can surmise greater biodiversity with luxury as observed elsewhere (Chamberlain, Henry, Reynolds, Caprio and Amar 2019, Magle, Fidino, Sander, Rohnke, Larson, Gallo, Kay, Lehrer, Murray and Adalsteinsson 2021), but given the negative effects on biodiversity of highly abundant deer (Beckett, Elle, Kremen, Sherwood, McComb and Martin 2022, Côté, Rooney, Tremblay, Dussault and Waller 2004, Martin, Arcese and Scheerder 2011) this is worth close examination. As urbanization continues to expand around the world, thrusting humans into higher densities and radically altering the habitats for millions of species, the mechanisms driving urban biodiversity should be a 21st century focus for wildlife ecology, so that future planning can effectively allow for coexistence of urban population and wildlife approximating as much as possible natural conditions.