Ecological homogenization of urban USA

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

doi:10.1890/120374

Cited by 367 publications

(292 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Furthermore, changes associated with urban land uses act as filters in urban species composition, and losses of native species drive the homogenization of ecological structures and functions (28). Habitat patches and their ecological communities are often isolated by a matrix of built environments.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global urban signatures of phenotypic change in animal and plant populations

Alberti

Correa

Marzluff

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

402

312

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Humans challenge the phenotypic, genetic, and cultural makeup of species by affecting the fitness landscapes on which they evolve. Recent studies show that cities might play a major role in contemporary evolution by accelerating phenotypic changes in wildlife, including animals, plants, fungi, and other organisms. Many studies of ecoevolutionary change have focused on anthropogenic drivers, but none of these studies has specifically examined the role that urbanization plays in ecoevolution or explicitly examined its mechanisms. This paper presents evidence on the mechanisms linking urban development patterns to rapid evolutionary changes for species that play important functional roles in communities and ecosystems. Through a metaanalysis of experimental and observational studies reporting more than 1,600 phenotypic changes in species across multiple regions, we ask whether we can discriminate an urban signature of phenotypic change beyond the established natural baselines and other anthropogenic signals. We then assess the relative impact of five types of urban disturbances including habitat modifications, biotic interactions, habitat heterogeneity, novel disturbances, and social interactions. Our study shows a clear urban signal; rates of phenotypic change are greater in urbanizing systems compared with natural and nonurban anthropogenic systems. By explicitly linking urban development to traits that affect ecosystem function, we can map potential ecoevolutionary implications of emerging patterns of urban agglomerations and uncover insights for maintaining key ecosystem functions upon which the sustainability of human wellbeing depends.ecoevolution | urbanization | ecosystem function | sustainability | anthropocene E merging evidence of phenotypic change on contemporary timescales challenges the assumption that evolution only occurs over hundreds or thousands of years. Anthropogenic changes in ecological conditions can drive evolutionary change in species traits that can alter ecosystem function (1-3). However, the reciprocal and simultaneous outcomes of such interactions have only begun to emerge (4). Despite increasing evidence that humans are major drivers of microevolution, the role of human activities in such dynamics is still unclear. Might human-driven evolution lead to ecosystem change with consequences for human well-being within contemporary timescales (5, 6)?To address this question, human-driven phenotypic change must be considered in the context of global rapid urbanization. In 1950, 30% of the world's population lived in urban settlements (7). By 2014, that figure had risen to 54%, and by 2050 it is expected to reach 66% (7). By 2030, urban land cover is forecast to increase by 1.2 million km 2 , almost tripling the global urban land area of 2000 (8). Urbanization drives systemic changes to socioecological systems by accelerating rates of interactions among people, multiplying connections among distant places, and expanding the spatial scales and ecological consequences of human activities to glo...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global urban signatures of phenotypic change in animal and plant populations

Alberti

Correa

Marzluff

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

402

312

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…30, 35, 36, 48, and 49). Several of these data types have been collected and incorporated (9,17), which adds to the present analysis of lawn care practices an associated analysis of lawn care outcomes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…practices), regardless of the biophysical setting, that produce similar environmental outcomes. This relationship (sometimes implicit), the so-called "homogenization hypothesis" (9,10,(25)(26)(27), has yet to be rigorously tested regarding lawn care practices. The production of similar landscapes in differing biophysical settings might be associated with different, not similar, behaviors.…”

Section: Sustainability Lawn Care and Urban Ecological Homogenizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Coupled with the homogenization hypothesis, these alternative propositions of differentiation collectively represent a major and under-studied research agenda in urban ecology. To date, the social and natural sciences literatures on lawn care have tested for the homogeneity of biophysical outcomes from lawn care practices, assuming-not testing-an underlying homogeneity of lawn care practices (9,10,(25)(26)(27).…”

Section: Sustainability Lawn Care and Urban Ecological Homogenizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…refs. [8][9][10]. The composition of plant species, soil nutrient profiles, and presence or extent of surface water bodies appears to be increasingly similar across cities, even in dissimilar biophysical settings (10)(11)(12)(13)(14).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing the homogenization of urban land management with an application to US residential lawn care

Polsky

Grove

Knudson

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

166

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Changes in land use, land cover, and land management present some of the greatest potential global environmental challenges of the 21st century. Urbanization, one of the principal drivers of these transformations, is commonly thought to be generating land changes that are increasingly similar. An implication of this multiscale homogenization hypothesis is that the ecosystem structure and function and human behaviors associated with urbanization should be more similar in certain kinds of urbanized locations across biogeophysical gradients than across urbanization gradients in places with similar biogeophysical characteristics. This paper introduces an analytical framework for testing this hypothesis, and applies the framework to the case of residential lawn care. This set of land management behaviors are often assumednot demonstrated-to exhibit homogeneity. Multivariate analyses are conducted on telephone survey responses from a geographically stratified random sample of homeowners (n = 9,480), equally distributed across six US metropolitan areas. Two behaviors are examined: lawn fertilizing and irrigating. Limited support for strong homogenization is found at two scales (i.e., multi-and single-city; 2 of 36 cases), but significant support is found for homogenization at only one scale (22 cases) or at neither scale (12 cases). These results suggest that US lawn care behaviors are more differentiated in practice than in theory. Thus, even if the biophysical outcomes of urbanization are homogenizing, managing the associated sustainability implications may require a multiscale, differentiated approach because the underlying social practices appear relatively varied. The analytical approach introduced here should also be productive for other facets of urban-ecological homogenization.sustainability science | land-change science | urban ecology | private land management

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Landscape position influences soil respiration variability and sensitivity to physiological drivers in mixed‐use lands of Southern California, USA

2016

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Linking variation in ecosystem functioning to physiological and landscape drivers has become an important research need for understanding ecosystem responses to global changes. We investigate how these contrasting scale‐dependent ecosystem drivers influence soil respiration (Rs), a key ecosystem process, using in situ landscape surveys and experimental subsidies of water and labile carbon. Surveys and experiments were conducted in summer and winter seasons and were distributed along a coastal to desert climate gradient and among the dominant land use classes in Southern California, USA. We found that Rs decreased from lawn to agricultural and wildland land uses for both seasons and along the climate gradient in the summer while increasing along the climate gradient in the winter. Rs variation was positively correlated with soil temperature and negatively to soil moisture and substrate. Water additions increased Rs in wildland land uses, while urban land uses responded little or negatively. However, most land uses exhibited carbon limitation, with wildlands experiencing largest responses to labile carbon additions. These findings show that intensively managed land uses have increased rates, decreased spatial variation, and decreased sensitivity to environmental conditions in Rs compared to wildlands, while increasing aridity has the opposite effect. In linking scales, physiological drivers were correlated with Rs but landscape position influenced Rs by altering both the physiological drivers and the sensitivity to the drivers. Systematic evaluation of physiological and landscape variation provides a framework for understanding the effects of interactive global change drivers to ecosystem metabolism across multiple scales.

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Ecological homogenization of urban USA

Cited by 367 publications

References 47 publications

Global urban signatures of phenotypic change in animal and plant populations

Global urban signatures of phenotypic change in animal and plant populations

Assessing the homogenization of urban land management with an application to US residential lawn care

Landscape position influences soil respiration variability and sensitivity to physiological drivers in mixed‐use lands of Southern California, USA

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