Abstract
Urbanization is among the largest threats to wildlife populations through factors such as fragmentation, isolation, and habitat destruction. Urban open spaces, such as parks and golf courses, have the potential to provide wildlife with suitable habitat within an urbanized matrix. These refugia may be particularly important for amphibians, which represent one of the most endangered and least vagile vertebrate groups on earth. During the spring and summer of 2018, we conducted surveys to determine the presence of anurans at 51 wetland sites within the Piedmont ecoregion of South Carolina. Nearly one-third of these wetlands were located within urban open spaces, one-third in low development areas, and one-third in highly developed areas. Impervious surface and total road length surrounding the wetlands were measured at two scales, a core habitat scale (300 m) and average maximum migration scale (750 m), and we measured several within-wetland habitat variables. Urban Open Space wetlands had levels of surrounding impervious surface similar to High Urbanization wetlands at the larger scale and were intermediate between Low and High Urbanization wetlands at the smaller scale. The total length of road segments occurring within buffers (at both scales) surrounding our study wetlands was higher for Urban Open Space compared to Low and High Urbanization sites. Among the within-wetland variables measured, Low Urbanization sites had higher canopy cover and were more likely to have a terrestrial buffer zone relative to the other categories. Species richness decreased significantly as total road length increased among all wetlands. Wetland category was not a significant driver explaining species richness, but β-diversity was more variable among Urban Open Space wetlands than either Low or High Urbanization wetlands. Urban Open Space wetlands did not appear to increase suitability for anurans relative to High Urbanization wetlands. Urban Open Space wetlands had higher variability in species composition, which was perhaps attributable to the diversity among sites represented in the Urban Open Space category.
Highlights
Undeveloped habitat is rapidly being replaced with urban infrastructure such as roads, buildings, houses, large paved areas, and other impervious surfaces [1, 2]
At the 750 m scale, percent impervious surface was significantly higher in High Urbanization sites relative to Low Urbanization wetlands and in Urban Open Space wetlands relative to Low Urbanization sites
There was no significant difference in impervious surface between High Urbanization and Urban Open Space wetlands at the 750 m scale (Mean = 57.06 and 45.63, respectively; P = 0.11)
Summary
Undeveloped habitat is rapidly being replaced with urban infrastructure such as roads, buildings, houses, large paved areas, and other impervious surfaces [1, 2]. An increase in housing and building density has a negative effect on native species through habitat loss and reduction in habitat quality [2,3,4,5,6]. Urban open spaces are defined within this study as publicly accessible, managed outdoor spaces that are partly or completely covered by significant amounts of vegetation that exist primarily as semi-natural areas within an urban environment [15,16,17]. These areas may be public parks, community gardens, sports recreation zones (e.g. golf courses), or cemeteries. Can urban open spaces help to preserve local biodiversity, their presence and the presence of the plant and animal species they can contain can have positive psychological benefits to the people who utilize them [18, 19]
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