Environment and Biodiversity

Fuller, Richard A.; Tratalos, Jamie A.; Warren, Philip H.; Davies, Richard G.; Pępkowska, Aleksandra; Gaston, Kevin J.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-8647-2_4

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…This heterogeneity is such that it may only become apparent when urban green spaces are mapped at spatial resolutions that are much finer than commonly employed when studying rural landscapes, and necessitating high‐resolution remote sensing data (Fuller et al . ). A comparison between two different areas of the city of Leicester, UK, the first displaying nondomestically owned green space dominated by a public park (Fig.…”

Section: Green Space Structurementioning

confidence: 97%

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REVIEW: Managing urban ecosystems for goods and services

Gaston

Ávila-Jiménez

Edmondson

2013

Journal of Applied Ecology

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152

118

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Summary1. Concomitant with the rise in the proportion of the global human population that resides in urban areas has been growth in awareness of the importance of the provision of ecosystem goods and services to those people. Urban areas are themselves of significance in this regard because of their areal extent, and hence the quantity of services falling within their bounds, and because of the need for local provision of services to urban residents. 2. Here, we review key challenges to the effective management of ecosystem goods and services within urban areas. 3. These challenges include the structure of green space, its temporal dynamics, spatial constraint on ecosystem service flows, occurrence of novel forms of flows, large numbers of land managers, conflicting management goals, possible differences between perceptions of urban dwellers and the reality of the distribution and flow of ecosystem services, and the 'wicked' nature of the problem of ecosystem service management. 4. Synthesis and applications. Urban areas present very particular combinations of challenges and opportunities for the management of ecosystem goods and services. The spatial and temporal heterogeneity of green spaces greatly complicates the maintenance and improvement in service provision as well as dramatically inflating costs. Spatial constraints on ecosystem service flows mean that these can be highly dependent on the maintenance of particular areas of connectivity, but also that provision of additional key points of connectivity may be disproportionately beneficial to those flows. The existence of novel forms of flows of ecosystem services in urban areas offers means of overcoming spatial constraints on more natural flows, but will require the development of new kinds of ecosystem process models to inform their design and management. The large numbers of land managers, conflicts between the best approaches for managing for different goods and services, and frequent differences between the perceptions of urban dwellers and the reality of urban landscapes create a complex management context. The management of ecosystem goods and services is closely allied to the challenges of conventional urban planning. However, applied ecology has a broad range of tools available to assist in determining solutions, including the use of high-resolution remote sensing techniques, landscape ecology principles and theory (e.g. patch and matrix frameworks, meta-population models), and systematic conservation planning approaches.

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Section: Green Space Structurementioning

confidence: 97%

“…For example, Fuller et al . () show how the proportion of green space in 250 × 250 m grid cells across Sheffield, UK, declines with the time (from 1860) since each cell became predominantly urbanised; once urbanised, green space in a cell has become progressively further eroded. On a shorter time horizon, Dallimer et al .…”

Section: Temporal Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

REVIEW: Managing urban ecosystems for goods and services

Gaston

Ávila-Jiménez

Edmondson

2013

Journal of Applied Ecology

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152

118

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“…), as they make up most vegetation cover in a city (Fuller et al. , Tryjanowski et al. ) and serve multiple uses, including biodiversity conservation (Ives et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of local and landscape habitat attributes on bird diversity in urban greenspaces

et al. 2018

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Abstract. Contrasting trajectories of biodiversity loss and urban expansion make it imperative to understand biodiversity persistence in cities. Size-, local-, and landscape-level habitat factors of greenspaces in cities may be critical for future design and management of urban greenspaces in conserving bird biodiversity. Most current understanding of bird communities in cities has come from disparate analyses of single cities, over relatively short time periods, producing limited understanding of processes and characteristics of bird patterns for improved biodiversity management of the world's cities. We analyzed bird biodiversity in 112 urban greenspaces from 51 cities across eight countries, using eBird, a broadscale citizen science project. Species richness and Shannon diversity were used as response variables, while percent tree cover, percent water cover, and vegetation index were used as habitat predictor variables at both a landscape (5 and 25 km radius) and local-scale level (specific to an individual greenspace) in the modeling process, retrieved using Google Earth Engine. Area of a greenspace was the most important predictor of bird biodiversity, underlining the critical importance of habitat area as the most important factor for increasing bird biodiversity and mitigating loss from urbanization. Surprisingly, distance from the city center and distance from the coast were not significantly related to bird biodiversity. Landscape-scale habitat predictors were less related to bird biodiversity than local-scale habitat predictors. Ultimately, bird biodiversity loss could be mitigated by protecting and developing large greenspaces with varied habitat in the world's cities.

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“…Researchers have found that increasing urban density leads to declining ecological integrity at local scales, although the magnitude of this effect varies taxonomically and geographically (for reviews, see Chace & Walsh, ; McDonnell et al ., ; Fuller et al ., ; Gaston, ). High‐density, compact development has a severe impact on local biodiversity in built areas, and might be predicted to result (all else being equal), in a relatively high rate of local extinctions, albeit limited to a small area.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How should we grow cities to minimize their biodiversity impacts?

Sushinsky

Rhodes

Possingham

et al. 2012

Global Change Biology

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194

132

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Urbanization causes severe environmental degradation and continues to increase in scale and intensity around the world, but little is known about how we should design cities to minimize their ecological impact. With a sprawling style of urban development, low intensity impact is spread across a wide area, and with a compact form of development intense impact is concentrated over a small area; it remains unclear which of these development styles has a lower overall ecological impact. Here, we compare the consequences of compact and sprawling urban growth patterns on bird distributions across the city of Brisbane, Australia. We predicted the impact on bird populations of adding 84,642 houses to the city in either a compact or sprawling design using statistical models of bird distributions. We show that urban growth of any type reduces bird distributions overall, but compact development substantially slows these reductions at the city scale. Urban-sensitive species particularly benefited from compact development at the city scale because large green spaces were left intact, whereas the distributions of nonnative species expanded as a result of sprawling development. As well as minimizing ecological disruption, compact urban development maintains human access to public green spaces. However, backyards are smaller, which impacts opportunities for people to experience nature close to home. Our results suggest that cities built to minimize per capita ecological impact are characterized by high residential density, with large interstitial green spaces and small backyards, and that there are important trade-offs between maintaining city-wide species diversity and people's access to biodiversity in their own backyard.

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Environment and Biodiversity

Cited by 10 publications

References 95 publications

REVIEW: Managing urban ecosystems for goods and services

REVIEW: Managing urban ecosystems for goods and services

The effects of local and landscape habitat attributes on bird diversity in urban greenspaces

How should we grow cities to minimize their biodiversity impacts?

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