TABLE 1.

Examples of possible changes in human–nature interactions due to the pandemic and their potential drivers and consequences. The three types of pathways (Pathways 1, 2 and 3) presented in the Drivers column correspond to those presented in Figure 2. Note that we just provide representative elementary examples, and the pandemic is likely to alter human–nature interactions in various ways

Possible changes	Drivers (Pathways)	Consequences
Increase in recreational use of natural environments	Increased interest in outdoor physical activity (Pathway 3); increased positive attitudes towards nature (Pathway 3) and increased availability of discretionary time (Pathway 1)	Improved health and well‐being in local human populations (e.g. decreased risk of lifestyle diseases) Increased pressures on wildlife species/decrease in wildlife abundance
Increase in frequency of bird feeding in domestic gardens	Increased positive attitudes towards nature (Pathway 3) and increased availability of discretionary time (Pathway 1)	Improved health and well‐being in local human populations (e.g. decreased risk of lifestyle diseases) Increased species richness and abundance of birds in urban and suburban areas
Increase in frequency of hearing bird song in urban areas	Increase in duration of singing in urban birds, and increased detectability of bird song due to decreased levels of background noise (Pathway 1)	Improved health and well‐being of human urban residents (e.g. decreased symptoms of depression)
Increase in number of human attacks by wildlife in suburban and rural areas	Increased abundance of problematic wildlife (e.g. bears) due to reduced human activity (Pathway 1)	Increased injury and death risks for people living in suburban and rural areas
Decrease in number of visitors to remote natural environments and ecotourism sites (e.g. national parks)	Reduced ability to travel due to travel restriction policies (Pathway 1) and poor physical and psychological health (Pathway 2); closure of national parks (Pathway 1)	Decrease in anthropogenic impacts on wildlife inhabiting national parks Reduced amount of citizen science data for threatened species Reduced number of wildlife attacks on humans
Decrease in number of wildlife–vehicle collisions	Reduced number of cars on highways due to reduced economic activity and human mobility (Pathway 1)	Reduced mortality in wildlife populations Reduced economic and social costs associated with collisions (e.g. car crash)

This article is being made freely available through PubMed Central as part of the COVID-19 public health emergency response. It can be used for unrestricted research re-use and analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source, for the duration of the public health emergency.