Applying landscape ecological principles in urban environments

Abstract

Urban dwellers have long been interested in theinteractions between humans and nature. Already100 years ago concerns were raised about the fate ofurban flora in the rapidly expanding city of Helsinkiin Finland (Brenner 1906), but ecologists largelyignored urban areas for most of the twentieth century(Grimm et al. 2008). Lack of research has resulted inecology contributing little to solving urban environ-mental problems or providing understanding forplanning and management (Niemela¨ 1999; Grimmet al. 2008).Systematic urban ecological research started onlyabout 50 years ago. Berlin in Germany was one of thefirst cities to be studied comprehensively (Scholz1956), and urban ecological research has its longesttraditions in Central Europe and the UK (Sukopp2008). More recently, similar surge of interest hastaken place across the world. For instance, the journalLandscape Ecology has recently published numerouspapers on urban landscape ecology. With the expan-sion of cities worldwide, knowledge of the ecology ofcities integrated with social science approaches toguide the development of sustainable cities isurgently needed (Wu 2008; Grimm et al. 2008).From an ecological perspective, cities are uniquemosaics of sites which are constructed for residential,commercial, industrial, and infrastructural purposes,interspersed with green spaces. Urban green spacesare diverse, and include, for instance, parks, gardensand recreation venues. In addition to these formalgreen spaces, cities include informal green space,consisting of remnants of less modified, indigenousvegetation types, as well as specific urban habitats,such as derelict industrial sites, overgrown gardens,and ruderal sites (Breuste 2003). This mosaic ofhabitats can be fruitfully studied and understoodusing landscape ecology as a framework (Wu 2008).Landscape ecology provides approaches and meth-ods for understanding the dynamics of urban greenspaces. Urban habitat patches are small and isolatedfrom each other by a matrix of built environment.Ecological theories that have been used to examinesuch ‘‘archipelagoes’’ of urban green spaces includeisland biogeography theory (MacArthur and Wilson1967). The findings of several urban studies (e.g.,Klausnitzer 1993) of a positive relationship betweenpatch size and species richness suggest that the theoryof island biogeography could be an appropriateframework for urban ecological research as a first