Assessment of Urban Biodiversity: A Case Study of Beijing City, China

Abstract

Habitat loss is the most important factor affecting biodiversity. Beijing is an international metropolis with rich biodiversity. With the development of urbanization, biodiversity has been affected to a certain extent in Beijing City. We investigated plant communities in three green land types, parks, residential areas, and roads along an urbanization gradient in the Beijing urban area (inner 6th ring road). Species composition, similarity index, and diversity of plants in urban areas were calculated. The results showed 536 species, belonging to 103 families, and 319 genera in the Beijing urban area. Among them, there were 361 native species and 175 imported species. Eighty species were imported from abroad and 95 species from inland, namely 14.9% and 17.7% of the total species, respectively. The species richness and diversity of trees and shrubs first increased and then decreased along the urbanization gradients, with the decreasing trend from the inner 2nd ring road and the increasing trend from the 3rd–4th ring road. No significant difference was found along the urbanization gradient for herbaceous plants. There were no significant differences in species evenness along the urbanization gradient.