Convergence of microclimate in residential landscapes across diverse cities in the United States

Hall, Sharon J.; Learned, Jennifer; Ruddell, Benjamin L.; Larson, Kelli L.; Cavender‐Bares, Jeannine; Bettez, Neil D.; Groffman, Peter M.; Grove, J. Morgan; Heffernan, James B.; Hobbie, Sarah E.; Morse, Jennifer L.; Neill, Christopher; Nelson, Kristen C.; O’Neil‐Dunne, Jarlath; Ogden, Laura A.; Pataki, Diane E.; Pearse, William D.; Polsky, Colin; Chowdhury, Rinku Roy; Steele, Meredith K.; Trammell, Tara L. E.

doi:10.1007/s10980-015-0297-y

Cited by 88 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 67 publications

(64 reference statements)

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“…The generally similar habitat and vegetation of the town centres allow the existence of the same kind of species. On the other hand, because of the urban heat island phenomenon, temperature differences between southern and northern areas are not so great in town centres than in their surrounding areas (Hall et al 2016). Also, that town centres may offer food resources and energy inputs from humans, which are exploited by a few superdominant bird species (Pautasso et al 2011;Filloy et al 2015;Galbraith et al 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scale dependence of biotic homogenisation by urbanisation: a comparison of urban bird communities between central Argentina and northern Finland

Leveau¹,

Jokimäki²,

Kaisanlahti‐Jokimäki³

2017

European Journal of Ecology

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Recent studies showed contrasting results about the homogenising force of urbanisation on bird community composition at large and regional scales. We studied whether urbanisation promotes the homogenisation of wintering bird communities and if this varies when comparing towns located within a specific region and towns located in two different biomes of two countries. We used both similarity indices based on the presence/absence data and the abundance data in comparing communities. Processes governing bird community dissimilarity between urbanisation levels were examined with the partitioning of Sörensen index in species turnover and nestedness. We made bird surveys in town centres and suburban habitats of three cities located in the Pampean region of Argentina and in the boreal region of Finland using a single-visit study plot method. Rarefacted species richness did not differ amongst the town centres between the countries, but it was higher in the suburban areas of Argentina than in Finland. At the country-level comparison, we found a higher similarity amongst the town centres than amongst the suburban areas; whereas at the regional comparison, similarity between town centres was comparable to the similarity between suburban areas. The use of an abundance-based index produced a higher similarity between town centre communities of both countries than when using a presence-based index. The dissimilarity between habitats in Argentina was related to nestedness and to species turnover in Finland. Our results indicate that urban-based biotic homogenisation of bird communities is dependent on the scale used, being more evident when comparing cities of different biomes where the same and abundant bird species, such as sparrows and doves, dominate. At the regional scale, quite a high beta-diversity can still be found within urban habitats. Processes of community dissimilarity between urban habitats may differ according to the regional pool of species, being more related to nestedness toward the tropics.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scale dependence of biotic homogenisation by urbanisation: a comparison of urban bird communities between central Argentina and northern Finland

Leveau¹,

Jokimäki²,

Kaisanlahti‐Jokimäki³

2017

European Journal of Ecology

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“…), and of the 5797 who agreed to take part in a follow‐up, we randomly selected participants to take part in this study (see Hall et al. for more details). The rationale underlying the selection of natural sites is outlined in Table .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Homogenization of plant diversity, composition, and structure in North American urban yards

et al. 2018

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Abstract. Urban ecosystems are widely hypothesized to be more ecologically homogeneous than natural ecosystems. We argue that urban plant communities assemble from a complex mix of horticultural and regional species pools, and evaluate the homogenization hypothesis by comparing cultivated and spontaneously occurring urban vegetation to natural area vegetation across seven major U.S. cities. There was limited support for homogenization of urban diversity, as the cultivated and spontaneous yard flora had greater numbers of species than natural areas, and cultivated phylogenetic diversity was also greater. However, urban yards showed evidence of homogenization of composition and structure. Yards were compositionally more similar across regions than were natural areas, and tree density was less variable in yards than in comparable natural areas. This homogenization of biodiversity likely reflects similar horticultural source pools, homeowner preferences, and management practices across U.S. cities.

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“…Urbanized land is expanding rapidly, both worldwide and within the United States (Seto et al, ), making urbanization one of the most influential contributors to ecosystem change (Grimm et al, ). Scientists recognize that urban development homogenizes ecological patterns, such as soil moisture and organic matter content (Groffman et al, ), microclimate (Hall et al, ), ground cover (Polsky et al, ) and vegetation (Wheeler et al, ). Urbanization also alters airborne bacterial communities (Bowers et al, ,b), though it does not always decrease diversity (Brodie et al, ; Mhuireach et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distributing regionally, distinguishing locally: examining the underlying effects of local land use on airborne bacterial biodiversity

Docherty

Pearce

Lemmer

et al. 2018

Environmental Microbiology

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Airborne bacteria are abundant and can vary with land use. Urban expansion is increasing rapidly at a global scale, altering natural sources of airborne bacterial biodiversity, as soils and native plants are replaced by pavement and managed yards. Urbanization homogenizes the biodiversity of larger organisms, but its effects are understudied with respect to microbes. This study uses categorical and gradient approaches to examine airborne bacterial communities in southwest Michigan (USA). Airborne communities carried a gut-microbial signature and were equally homogenous above urban and rural sites, despite greater homogeneity of soil communities at urban sites. Ruminococcaceae were abundant, the source of which is likely wildlife. Beyond the gut-microbial signature, there were underlying effects of land use, which were evident in the shared airborne taxa across urban and rural sites. Bacillales, Burkholderiales, Alteromonadales and Pseudomonadales were shared more across urban sites, while Xanthomonadales, which contains crop-plant pathogens, were shared across rural agricultural sites. These results suggest that taxa which may distribute globally, coupled with localized sources, contribute to urban communities, while regional rural activities drive rural composition. We determined that soils were unlikely to contribute to broad distribution of some plant-associated taxa, but may be a source for distribution of others.

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Convergence of microclimate in residential landscapes across diverse cities in the United States

Cited by 88 publications

References 67 publications

Scale dependence of biotic homogenisation by urbanisation: a comparison of urban bird communities between central Argentina and northern Finland

Scale dependence of biotic homogenisation by urbanisation: a comparison of urban bird communities between central Argentina and northern Finland

Homogenization of plant diversity, composition, and structure in North American urban yards

Distributing regionally, distinguishing locally: examining the underlying effects of local land use on airborne bacterial biodiversity

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