Abstract
Essential for directing conservation resources is to identify threatened vertebrate regions and diagnose the underlying causalities. Through relating vertebrates and threatened vertebrates to the rainfall-runoff chain, to the food chain, and to the human impact of urbanization, the following relationships are noticed: (i) The Earth’s vertebrates generally show increasing abundance and decreasing threatened species indicator (threatened species number/species abundance) for a higher Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) or larger city-size. (ii) Regional vertebrates reveal a notable ‘U-shape profile’ (‘step-like jump’) of threatened species indicator occurs in the moderate (high) NDVI regions in China (America). (iii) Positive/green city states emerge in China and are characterized by the lowest threatened species indicators in areas of low to moderate greenness, where the greenness trend of change during the last 30 years is about three times higher in the urbanized areas than over land. (iv) Negative/brown city states emerge in America revealing high threatened species indicators for greenness exceeding NDVI > 0.2, where similar greenness trends are of both urbanized and land areas. The occurrence of green and brown city states suggests a biodiversity change pattern characterized by the threatened species indicator declining from city regimes with high to those with low indicator values for increasing ratio of the city-over-land NDVI trends.
Highlights
Understanding the ongoing urbanization and climate change effect on biodiversity will help shift traditional management of resources and risks to integrated monitoring and holistic responses across wide ranges of space-time scales [1,2,3]
(iii) Statistics based on DMSP/OLS nighttime stable lights products show the urban construction changed over time in Chinese (American) cities, expanding from 1.3% to 6.0% (10.7% to 12.3%) during to 2012 [7], China accounts for ~4 times more globally threatened species than America
For cities in China and on a global scale, but not in America, a general pattern of city size dependence emerges: Enhanced city sizes are associated with reduced vegetation greenness variability and reduced threatened species indicator
Summary
Understanding the ongoing urbanization and climate change effect on biodiversity will help shift traditional management of resources and risks to integrated monitoring and holistic responses across wide ranges of space-time scales [1,2,3]. Biodiversity along altitudinal gradients was previously assumed to increase universally from cool highlands to warm lowlands [4]. Sensors 2019, 19, 4499 planet’s land surface is experiencing measurable human pressure, which is widespread and rapidly intensifying in places of high biodiversity. With the increasing availability of high-resolution climate and remote sensing data, broad-scale studies are increasingly likely to estimate magnitude and identify the causality of the global biodiversity loss, which are fundamental for where and how society should be directing conservation resources [2,3]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
