Abstract
Urbanization poses important environmental, social, and ecological pressures, representing a major threat to biodiversity. However, urban areas are highly heterogeneous, with some greenspaces (e.g., urban forests, parks, private gardens) providing resources and a refuge for wildlife communities. In this study we surveyed 10 taxonomic groups to assess their species richness and composition in six greenspaces that differ in size, location, management, and human activities. Species richness differed among taxonomic groups, but not all differed statistically among the studied greenspaces (i.e., sac fungi, bats). Plants, basidiomycetous and sac fungi, and birds showed intermediate assemblage composition similarity (<54%). The composition of assemblages of copro-necrophagous beetles, grasshoppers, amphibians, and bats was related to the specific traits of greenspaces, mainly size and location. The species richness contribution of each greenspace considering all studied taxonomic groups was highest in the largest greenspace that is located at the southeastern border of the city, while the lowest contribution was recorded in the smallest ones, all of them closer to the city’s center. Our results shed some light on the way in which different taxonomic groups respond to an array of neotropical urban greenspaces, providing an important basis for future studies.
Highlights
As the human population rises and global economic models drive people from rural areas to urban centers, urbanization poses intensive demands with socio-economical and environmental effects at multiple scales [1,2,3]
Xalapa has a significant amount of woody vegetation cover, basically comprised by parks, urban forests, private gardens, and vacant lots [25]
We set five 10 m2 plots (1 m 10 m) per site which represented the variety of plant condition at each greenspace, which were dominated by shrubs and herb species
Summary
As the human population rises and global economic models drive people from rural areas to urban centers, urbanization poses intensive demands with socio-economical and environmental effects at multiple scales [1,2,3]. Not all greenspaces play similar roles for biodiversity, with active management practices and human activities (e.g., pruning, high visitation volume) reducing their ecological value [11,12], as well as other habitat and geographic variables (e.g., size, location) that mold their potential as biodiversity refuges [9,13] The responses to such variables can be attributed to underlying factors such as the biology of species, their sensitivity to disturbance, species-area relationships, edge effects, habitat heterogeneity associated with greenspaces and the history of local and regional land uses [13,14,15,16,17]
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