Native and alien floras in urban habitats: a comparison across 32 cities of central Europe

Abstract

Aim To determine relative effects of habitat type, climate and spatial pattern on species richness and composition of native and alien plant assemblages in central European cities. Location Central Europe, Belgium and the Netherlands. Methods The diversity of native and alien flora was analysed in 32 cities. In each city, plant species were recorded in seven 1‐ha plots that represented seven urban habitat types with specific disturbance regimes. Plants were classified into native species, archaeophytes (introduced before ad 1500) and neophytes (introduced later). Two sets of explanatory variables were obtained for each city: climatic data and all‐scale spatial variables generated by analysis of principal coordinates of neighbour matrices. For each group of species, the effect of habitat type, climate and spatial variables on variation in species composition was determined by variation partitioning. Responses of individual plant species to climatic variables were tested using a set of binomial regression models. Effects of climatic variables on the proportion of alien species were determined by linear regression. Results In all cities, 562 native plant species, 188 archaeophytes and 386 neophytes were recorded. Proportions of alien species varied among urban habitats. The proportion of native species decreased with increasing range and mean annual temperature, and increased with increasing precipitation. In contrast, proportions of archaeophytes and neophytes increased with mean annual temperature. However, spatial pattern explained a larger proportion of variation in species composition of the urban flora than climate. Archaeophytes were more uniformly distributed across the studied cities than the native species and neophytes. Urban habitats rich in native species also tended to be rich in archaeophytes and neophytes. Main conclusions Species richness and composition of central European urban floras are significantly affected by urban habitat types, climate and spatial pattern. Native species, archaeophytes and neophytes differ in their response to these factors.

Invasive flora within urban railway areas: a case study from Lublin (Poland) and Lviv (Ukraine)

“…In contrast, Ambrosia Tab. 1 The richness of native, alien, and invasive plant species found on railway areas within Lublin (Poland) and Lviv (Ukraine).…”

“…Invasions of plant species are considered among global problems which impair biodiversity in man-made and natural and seminatural ecosystems [1]. The great spread of invasive plant species is documented worldwide [2][3][4] and shows an increasing trend observed in Europe of the proportion of neophytes (alien species brought to Europe post-1500) in the total flora, and a decreasing or stable trend in the number of archaeophytes (alien species brought to Europe pre-1500) [5][6][7].…”

Impacts of urban sprawl on species richness of plants, butterflies, gastropods and birds: not only built-up area matters

“…We also used other environmental predictors known to affect biodiversity, like climatic, topographic, and additional land use variables (see e.g., Blair 1999;Wood and Pullin 2002;Nobis et al 2009;Lososová et al 2012a), which were calculated at the same spatial scale as species richness data to control for possible confounding effects (see Tables 1 and 2 for details). Table 1 Details on species data from the different monitoring programs operating in the study areas at the habitat and landscape scales, as well as on the set of urban and other environmental predictors (i.e., climate, topography and land use) tested for each taxonomic group and monitoring program (see also (1885, 1935, 1960, 1980, 2002, and 2010) Die …”

Changes in presence of alien species in the ruderal vegetation of a representative ecosystem in a major city over 30 years: a case study from Bratislava

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