Abstract
Simple SummaryCities are the fastest developing ecosystems on the planet. The rapid expansion of urban areas is typically seen as a threat to global biodiversity, yet the role of cities in protecting species that may be rare in the wild remains poorly explored. Here, we report the use of environmental DNA (eDNA) to document the species present in one of the largest urban green spaces in Johannesburg, South Africa. We document a surprisingly large number of taxonomic groups, including some rare and threatened species. Our results support the notion that urban green spaces can provide refuge to a large number of species, and the species inventory provides critical information that can be used by city parks managers to conserve green spaces.Adaptation to environments that are changing as a result of human activities is critical to species’ survival. A large number of species are adapting to, and even thriving in, urban green spaces, but this diversity remains largely undocumented. In the current study, we explored the potential of environmental DNA (eDNA) to document species diversity in one of the largest green spaces in Johannesburg, South Africa. Using a novel metabarcoding approach that assembles short DNA fragments suitable for massively parallel sequencing platforms to the approximate standard ~710 bp COI barcoding fragment, we document the presence of 26 phyla, 52 classes, 134 orders, 289 families, 380 genera and 522 known species from the study site. Our results highlight the critical role that urban areas play in protecting the world’s declining biodiversity.
Highlights
Urban areas are the fastest growing ecosystems on the planet
Only 12 species, namely Achlya bisexualis, Aspergillus tubingensis, Biomphalaria glabrata, Bulinus natalensis, Cheyletus malaccensis, Chrysomya rufifacies, Drosophila hydei, Fannia canicularis, Homo sapiens, Opistophthalmus boehmi, Rattus norvegicus, and Tuberolachnus salignus, are known to occur in Delta Park based on earlier, non-genetic studies (Table 1, Figure 3; see Appendix A Table A1 for a complete taxonomic list)
With only one extant genus, Afrarchaea, reported from South Africa [61], their presence in Delta Park highlights the importance of urban ecosystems for the survival of species that are comparatively rare in wild habitats [52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65]
Summary
Urban areas are the fastest growing ecosystems on the planet. The surrounding natural habitat is transformed, and wild species are either displaced or are forced to persist in shrinking pockets of fragmented habitats inside cities [1,2,3]. Species face a combination of environmental stressors and selective anthropogenic pressures that differ from those found in natural environments [8]. For those species that can adapt to the challenges of living in urban areas, there are numerous benefits. Shelter, fewer predators or competitors, and more stable micro-climatic conditions make cities an ecological hotspot for many species [9].
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