Abstract
Urban grasslands are usually managed as short-cut lawns and have limited biodiversity. Urban grasslands with low-intensity management are species rich and can perform numerous ecosystem services, but they are not accepted by citizens everywhere. Further, increasing and/or maintaining a relatively high level of plant species richness in an urban environment is limited by restricted plant dispersal. In this study, we examined the connectivity of urban grasslands and prioritized the grassland patches with regard to their role in connectivity in an urban landscape. We used high-resolution data from a land use system to map grassland patches in Wrocław city, Silesia, southwest Poland, Central Europe, and applied a graph theory approach to assess their connectivity and prioritization. We next constructed a model for several dispersal distance thresholds (2, 20, 44, 100, and 1000 m), reflecting plants with differing dispersal potential. Our results revealed low connectivity of urban grassland patches, especially for plants with low dispersal ability (2-20 m). The priority of patches was correlated with their area for all dispersal distance thresholds. Most of the large patches important to overall connectivity were located in urban peripheries, while in the city center, connectivity was more restricted and grassland area per capita was the lowest. The presence of a river created a corridor, allowing plants to migrate along watercourse, but it also created a barrier dividing the system. The results suggest that increasing the plant species richness in urban grasslands in the city center requires seed addition.
Highlights
Urban green space provides a variety of important ecosystem services [1, 2] ranging from conservation of biodiversity [3], maintenance of landscape connectivity [4], aesthetics [5], leisure and recreation [6], and human health benefits [7, 8]
The detailed aims of the study were (a) to examine how the connectivity between grassland patches can change based on different dispersal distances, (b) to determine the prioritization among the different patches based on landscape-scale connectivity, and (c) to determine how the spatial patterns of grassland distribution and connectivity are related to human population density in the city
Because our study focused on the connectivity between grassland patches with different plant species, we considered a range of dispersal distances
Summary
Urban green space provides a variety of important ecosystem services [1, 2] ranging from conservation of biodiversity [3], maintenance of landscape connectivity [4], aesthetics [5], leisure and recreation [6], and human health benefits [7, 8]. It shapes microclimates by mitigating urban heat islands [9, 10]; improving soil, water, and air quality [11, 12]; and reducing stormwater runoff [13]. Grasslands, primarily represented by urban lawns, constitute an important component of urban green space [14].
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