Detecting Nestedness in City Parks for Urban Biodiversity Conservation

Abstract

Urbanization has been a global phenomenon producing great environmental and ecological challenges including species composition shifts in urban areas. To evaluate the interaction networks of the inhabitant metacommunities in urban parks, we applied the nestedness analysis using ecological survey data of birds, reptiles, frogs, and butterflies among 16 parks in the Taipei city of Taiwan, and identified critical environmental factors for biodiversity conservation. Results found significant nestedness of the metacommunities among these parks, which indicated strong interaction networks and the importance of urban parks for sustaining these metacommunities. In addition, results showed that area of parks and area of trees were critical elements for the nested structure. However, abundant bird generalists were found to be highly related to the area of buildings within parks, distance to forests, rivers, and the neighboring parks. Moreover, the exotic species were found to affect the interaction networks of native species; yet reptiles and frogs were appeared to be more easily threatened by land development and habitat fragmentation due to their lower mobility. In this regard, we suggest that conservation action should focus on preserving green space with large areas and constructing the green corridors, creating crucial elements, and increasing the vertical complexity in the parks for various mobility level species. We also recommend to controlling the introduction of the exotic species and retaining healthy interactions and connections of metacommunities for effective biodiversity conservation in urban areas.

Assessment of urban forest species preference and nursery use practice in Pokhara Metropolitan City

“…Trees in urban environments have unusual growth conditions due to fragmented landscapes, challenging site constraints, fluctuating meteorological conditions, and disturbance regimes (Warn & Adamo, 2015). However, in many developing nations, forest managers responsible for managing urban tree populations do not possess the knowledge necessary for appropriate species selection, care, and maintenance, and lack information on street trees, including basic data such as city street surveys that are appropriate to that locality and environment (Chen & Cheng, 2022).…”