A dispersed vegetative cover contributes to urban biodiversity:plant diversity across land use types and scale in an Asian city

Urbanization provides both challenges and opportunities for biodiversity conservation,but patterns of urban plant diversity across land uses,especially in Asian countries,remains unclear.To determine these patterns of diversity,woody plants in 174 sample quadrats across various land use types in Kyoto City were investigated.Richness,abundance,and evenness were evaluated at city,land use,and quadrat scales,and biodiversity of different land use types was compared.At the city level,223 species in 77 families were recorded.At the land use level,residential areas had the highest total biological richness,with moderate to low evenness,while commercial areas exhibited low richness.At the quadrat level,the low-rise residential area had higher species richness than the other land uses.Species abundance and evenness in quadrats were significantly different across land use types for the canopy layer but not for the understory.The results provide insights into urban biodiversity design and management by identifying prior land uses for biodiversity improvement and by highlighting the contribution of residential private yards.Urban heterogeneity,scale,and multidimensionality should be considered when measuring urban biodiversity.

Urban biodiversity in China: Who are winners? Who are losers?

Rapid urbanization in the last three decades has impacted biogeographic patterns of wildlife in China profoundly.Large areas of natural habitats have been converted into concentrated industrial and residential areas[1].Remaining habitats in vicinities of cities are often fragmented and degraded[2].Besides land use/land cover changes,anthropogenic disturbances such as the introduction of exotic species further add pressure on local biodiversity[3].How does wildlife respond to these impacts?Who

Understanding the drivers of woody plant diversity in urban parks in a snow climate city of China

Urban parks are an important part of urban ecosystems and play an important role in biodiversity conservation.However,it is still unclear how park characteristics aff ect plant diversity which could hinder the conservation of urban biodiversity due to the ineff ective design of urban parks.The diversity of woody plants in 33 parks of Changchun,China,was measured with plot measurements and linked with urban park characteristics(e.g.,size and age of the park)to uncover the relationship between them.The results show that urban woody plant species were abundant,with 98 species belonging to 51 genera and 26 families in the snow climate city of Changchun.The variation in woody plant diversity was largely explained by internal patch characteristics(e.g.,size,age,shape),and external factors surrounding the park(e.g.,land use type and socioeconomic level)accounted for only 16.0%in our study.For internal patch characteristics,older urban parks with larger areas demonstrated a richer level of plant diversity and increased nonlinearly with increasing park area.The threshold size signifi cantly aff ecting plant diversity variation was approximately 30 ha.Plant diversity had positive linear relationships with the ages of urban parks,supporting the legacy eff ect.In addition,woody plant diversity nonlinearly decreased with increasing park shape index,which suggested that the plant diversity could also be increased by optimizing the park shape.Regarding the external factors surrounding parks,the spatial distribution of woody plant diversity varied greatly from the urban center to the suburbs.House prices around the park had positive linear relationships with woody plant diversity in parks,supporting the luxury eff ect.However,building and road proportions,and green space proportion had no relationship with plant diversity in parks.This study can provide a robust reference for enriching plant diversity in urban parks,thus improving the development of urban sustainable cities.

Effectiveness of nature reserves for bird conservation in urban parks in Tokyo

In some urban parks in Tokyo,semi-natural habitat patches are maintained as nature reserves for birds,called bird sanctuaries.Bird censuses and vegetation surveys were conducted in eight urban parks in Tokyo from December 2015 to July 2016 to determine the effectiveness of bird sanctuaries on avian species composition.The relationship between avian species composition and environmental conditions was analyzed by partial redundancy analysis(partial RDA)using vegetation variables,number of visitors,presence or absence of reserves within the same park,area of wooded parts,and normalized difference vegetation index(NDVI)in the surrounding area.The results of the partial RDA are as follows:(1)Area,lower vegetation cover,higher vegetation cover,tree species composition obtained from detrended correspondence analysis(DCA)on vegetation survey data,and NDVI in the surrounding area were considered as covariates and explained 17.4-33.6%of the total variation in bird species composition,(2)The presence or absence of sanctuary significantly explained bird species compositional variation regardless of season,indicating that the sanctuaries were beneficial for urban avoider species not only in the sanctuaries but also in the surrounding wooded area,and(3)Tree coverage within a 100 m range and leaf litter coverage also influenced avian species composition.We concluded that bird sanctuaries and other nature reserves can be beneficial to bird conservation,even within Tokyo.The positive effect of sanctuaries could be due to the limited influence of human presence and the developed vegetation within them.These reserves may play the role of core habitats within the studied urban parks.

Plugging urban ecology science into design practice:a research perspective

There is a broad consensus that urban ecology science needs to be more effective in informing and supporting urban planning and design.How to bridge the two disciplines is still a grand challenge because scientific research often cannot find its way into practice.Underlying reasons have often been explored around governance,policies and institutional aspects.From a scientific research perspective,this paper briefly outlines the divergence between the two disciplines and seeks potential intersections of them.Overall,starting from the practical needs,this paper argues that there are many“plug-in”opportunities that should be explored in the whole research chain to accommodate successful co-development of research in practice,such as sharing similar research interests,jointly identifying research questions and objectives,adopting suitable research methods,well-designed research experiments and parameters(e.g.,matched scales,resolution levels,metrics and indicators),co-collection of site-specific data.Furthermore,this exploration can be enhanced,particularly at a local scale,where urban dwellers’perceptions,interests and the consequent influences on decision-making and actions can be well incorporated.