Enhanced Vegetation Growth in the Urban Environment Across 32 Cities in the Northern Hemisphere

Ruan, Yongjian; Zhang, Xinchang; Xin, Qinchuan; Ao, Zurui; Sun, Ying

doi:10.1029/2019jg005262

Cited by 22 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Similarly, Briber et al (2013) found that the GPP of Boston, MA, USA was ~75% lower than that of nearby Harvard Forest (HFR). However, there is evidence that tree and herbaceous plant growth rates are enhanced in urban areas worldwide, due to a combination of factors including elevated air temperature, atmospheric CO 2 , light availability, and nutrient availability (Briber et al, 2015; George et al, 2009; Pretzsch et al, 2017; Reinmann et al, 2020; Ruan et al, 2019; Searle et al, 2012; Sonti et al, 2019, Sonti, Griffin, et al, 2021; Zhao et al, 2016; Ziska et al, 2004). Despite enhanced growth rates, urban trees in some settings may not live as long as trees in rural forests (Smith et al, 2019), and fragmentation associated with urbanization may lead to increased climate stress (Reinmann & Hutyra, 2017).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban net primary production: Concepts, field methods, and Baltimore, Maryland, USA case study

Sonti

Groffman

Nowak

et al. 2022

Ecological Applications

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Given the large and increasing amount of urban, suburban, and exurban land use on Earth, there is a need to accurately assess net primary productivity (NPP) of urban ecosystems. However, the heterogeneous and dynamic urban mosaic presents challenges to the measurement of NPP, creating landscapes that may appear more similar to a savanna than to the native landscape replaced. Studies of urban biomass have tended to focus on one type of vegetation (e.g., lawns or trees). Yet a focus on the ecology of the city should include the entire urban ecosystem rather than the separate investigation of its parts. Furthermore, few studies have attempted to measure urban aboveground NPP (ANPP) using field‐based methods. Most studies project growth rates from measurements of tree diameter to estimate annual ANPP or use remote sensing approaches. In addition, field‐based methods for measuring NPP do not address any special considerations for adapting such field methods to urban landscapes. Frequent planting and partial or complete removal of herbaceous and woody plants can make it difficult to accurately quantify increments and losses of plant biomass throughout an urban landscape. In this study, we review how ANPP of urban landscapes can be estimated based on field measurements, highlighting the challenges specific to urban areas. We then estimated ANPP of woody and herbaceous vegetation over a 15‐year period for Baltimore, MD, USA using a combination of plot‐based field data and published values from the literature. Baltimore's citywide ANPP was estimated to be 355.8 g m−2, a result that we then put into context through comparison with other North American Long‐Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites and mean annual precipitation. We found our estimate of Baltimore citywide ANPP to be only approximately half as much (or less) than ANPP at forested LTER sites of the eastern United States, and more comparable to grassland, oldfield, desert, or boreal forest ANPP. We also found that Baltimore had low productivity for its level of precipitation. We conclude with a discussion of the significance of accurate assessment of primary productivity of urban ecosystems and critical future research needs.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban net primary production: Concepts, field methods, and Baltimore, Maryland, USA case study

Sonti

Groffman

Nowak

et al. 2022

Ecological Applications

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“…In addition to direct stress, elevated urban temperatures can also drive phenological shifts, with a potential cascade of negative effects (Fisogni et al 2020, Zipper et al 2016). Several studies have documented earlier owering in urban habitats for a range of plants including forbs, shrubs, and trees (Li et al 2017, Ruan et al 2019). However, a majority of these studies have been conducted using remotesensing techniques, which can give us a wealth of data on vegetative phenology a the macro-scale and have often focused on woody-plant communities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urbanization and plant diversity influence different aspects of floral phenology

Sexton¹,

Benton²,

Emery

2023

Urban Ecosyst

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Plant phenologies can shift as global temperatures rise and landscapes become human dominated. Some of the most pronounced shifts in phenologies have been documented in urban areas, where surface temperatures can reach 5-7℃ warmer than surrounding rural areas. In this study, we examined how oral phenology-the initiation, peak, and duration of oral events -shifted in grasslands across an urbanization gradient in Louisville, Kentucky, a city with one of the most severe urban heat islands in the US. Our objectives were to understand 1) how urbanization in uences oral phenology 2) if high-quality habitats with increased habitat patch size and plant richness could offset some effects of urbanization, and 3) if species responses varied across seasons. We found that average rst date of owering and peak abundance date occurred 1-2 weeks earlier in urban compared to rural areas. However, we found that oral duration was longest in sites with high plant richness, regardless of urbanization. We also found that summer-owering species increased their oral duration in urban areas while spring and fallowering species shortened theirs. These differences in seasonal responses lead to an "urban summer spillage" effect where summer-owering species are able to move into the temporal niche of spring and fall species in urban habitat patches. These shifts could lead to a reshu ing of communities and novel plant-plant competitive interactions or plant-animal interactions in the urban core, with lasting implications for urban conservation.

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“…Leaf greening is an important attribute of vegetation throughout the growing season and is a basis for quantifying the water, energy, and carbon exchange between the atmosphere and the biosphere [262][263][264]. A special case analyzed in terms of the growing season transition dates is the impact of urban complexes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Remote Sensing in Studies of the Growing Season: A Bibliometric Analysis

2022

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Analyses of climate change based on point observations indicate an extension of the plant growing season, which may have an impact on plant production and functioning of natural ecosystems. Analyses involving remote sensing methods, which have added more detail to results obtained in the traditional way, have been carried out only since the 1980s. The paper presents the results of a bibliometric analysis of papers related to the growing season published from 2000–2021 included in the Web of Science database. Through filtering, 285 publications were selected and subjected to statistical processing and analysis of their content. This resulted in the identification of author teams that mostly focused their research on vegetation growth and in the selection of the most common keywords describing the beginning, end, and duration of the growing season. It was found that most studies on the growing season were reported from Asia, Europe, and North America (i.e., 32%, 28%, and 28%, respectively). The analyzed articles show the advantage of satellite data over low-altitude and ground-based data in providing information on plant vegetation. Over three quarters of the analyzed publications focused on natural plant communities. In the case of crops, wheat and rice were the most frequently studied plants (i.e., they were analyzed in over 30% and over 20% of publications, respectively).

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Enhanced Vegetation Growth in the Urban Environment Across 32 Cities in the Northern Hemisphere

Cited by 22 publications

References 43 publications

Urban net primary production: Concepts, field methods, and Baltimore, Maryland, USA case study

Urban net primary production: Concepts, field methods, and Baltimore, Maryland, USA case study

Urbanization and plant diversity influence different aspects of floral phenology

Remote Sensing in Studies of the Growing Season: A Bibliometric Analysis

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