Open AccessJournal Article
The flora of German cities is naturally species rich
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It is shown by resampling the number of geological types per grid cell that cities are not randomly distributed but are in fact in areas of high geological diversity, which concludes that city areas are preferentially located in pre-existing biodiversity hotspots.Abstract:
Previous studies on various scales and for various European regions and North America have shown that cities harbour more plant species than the surrounding landscape. It has been argued that the greater number of plant species is usually caused by a high number of alien plants promoted by human influence. We analysed native and naturalized vascular plant species distribution data from a comprehensive German database comparing city and non-city grid cells of 10 minutes latitude × 6 minutes longitude (c. 130 km 2 ). The number of city grid cells (n = 68) and non-city grid cells (n = 1856) differed by two orders of magnitude and species richness was highly autocorrelated. We therefore used resampling techniques. We resampled the species richness of 68 randomly selected grid cells 9999 times. This showed that not only naturalized alien but also native plant species richness was significantly higher in city grid cells. To relate environmental variables to species richness, we used 10,000 analyses of covariance of 68 city grid cells and 68 randomly selected non-city grid cells. We demonstrated that a large proportion of the higher native plant species richness could be explained by the number of geological types per grid cell (i.e. a measure of natural geological diversity). Additionally, we showed by resampling the number of geological types per grid cell that cities are not randomly distributed but are in fact in areas of high geological diversity. Hence, we conclude that city areas are preferentially located in pre-existing biodiversity hotspots and argue that they are species rich not because of but in spite of urbanization.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Urbanization as a major cause of biotic homogenization
TL;DR: In this paper, a basic conservation challenge is that urban biota is often quite diverse and very abundant, and that, because so many urban species are immigrants adapting to city habitats, urbanites of all income levels become increasingly disconnected from local indigenous species and their natural ecosystems.
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Effects of urbanization on species richness: A review of plants and animals
TL;DR: 105 studies on the effects of urbanization on the species richness of non-avian species: mammals, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates and plants are reviewed, including the importance of nonnative species importation, spatial heterogeneity, intermediate disturbance and scale as major factors influencing species richness.
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A global analysis of the impacts of urbanization on bird and plant diversity reveals key anthropogenic drivers
Myla F. J. Aronson,Frank A. La Sorte,Charles H. Nilon,Madhusudan Katti,Mark A. Goddard,Christopher A. Lepczyk,Paige S. Warren,Nicholas S.G. Williams,Sarel S. Cilliers,Bruce D. Clarkson,Cynnamon Dobbs,Rebecca W. Dolan,Marcus Hedblom,Stefan Klotz,Jip Louwe Kooijmans,Ingolf Kühn,Ian MacGregor-Fors,Mark J. McDonnell,Ulla Mörtberg,Petr Pyšek,Petr Pyšek,Petr Pyšek,Stefan J. Siebert,Jessica Sushinsky,Peter Werner,Marten Winter +25 more
TL;DR: It is found that the majority of urban bird and plant species are native in the world's cities, with the most common being Columba livia and Poa annua and few plants and birds are cosmopolitan.
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Novel urban ecosystems, biodiversity, and conservation.
TL;DR: Although conservation attitudes may be challenged by the novelty of some urban ecosystems, it is promising to consider their associated ecosystem services, social benefits, and possible contribution to biodiversity conservation.
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Promoting and preserving biodiversity in the urban forest
TL;DR: The potential for urban areas to harbor considerable amounts of biodiversity needs to be recognized by city planners and urban foresters so that management practices that preserve and promote that diversity can be pursued as discussed by the authors.
References
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TL;DR: Larger numbers of species are probably needed to reduce temporal variability in ecosystem processes in changing environments and to determine how biodiversity dynamics, ecosystem processes, and abiotic factors interact.
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Fluctuating resources in plant communities: a general theory of invasibility
TL;DR: It is concluded that the elusive nature of the invasion process arises from the fact that it depends upon conditions of resource enrichment or release that occur only intermittently and, to result in invasion, must coincide with availability of invading propagules.