Legacy effects of housing segregation on urban mammal communities in Washington, D.C., USA

Abstract

Racist public policies in the US, like redlining, segregated many communities of color to resource poor and impoverished areas, and codified how resources were distributed to communities based on race. Redlining, a historic discriminatory housing policy used to value city neighborhoods by race has codified segregation in cities today. Research has shown how the practice of redlining has shaped the economic and social fabric of modern U.S. cities, but only recently have researchers explored how these discriminatory policies have influenced the ecology in cities. Here, we used camera trap data collected in the Washington, D.C. region to assess if historic redlining impacts medium-sized mammal diversity in present day. We found no significant difference in species richness or community composition among historic neighborhood classifications. We did find that urbanization alone had a significant negative correlation with the persistence of raccoon and occupancy of Virginia opossum, but these variables did not vary significantly between housing classifications for any species. Our study adds to a growing body of knowledge on how historic land use decisions affect biodiversity in cities, allowing managers to better understand where conservation and habitat improvements should be made to reduce nature inequalities.