Floristic changes of vascular flora in the city of Rome through grid-cell census over 23 years

Abstract

Cities are considered important areas for biodiversity and host a high plant species richness. However, many factors, such as urbanisation or changes in land use, can affect the presence of spontaneous flora and, consequently, represent a threat for biodiversity. How species respond to these factors of change in cities over time is a relevant and current issue and spatiotemporal analyses represent an essential step forward to better understand these dynamic systems and to fill gaps of knowledge. In this paper we present a comparison between a floristic survey carried out in 1995 on a grid-cell for the city of Rome and a new survey, performed between 2015 and 2018, in order to verify if the species composition significantly changed over time and to which drivers this change was related to. For 76 grid-cells of the raster, each of which of 1.6 km 2 , we recorded all spontaneous vascular species. We analysed the differences between the two surveys by means of statistical tests on species richness, by species turnover, by generalised linear models (GLMs) and by Ellenberg indicator values. The patterns of species richness are similar between the two surveys, although an increase in the number of species per grid-cell, on average, was observed. This increase regarded both native and alien richness, with significant differences only for aliens. Many species significantly reduced or increased their frequencies, comparing the two surveys. A set of environmental variables, among which the presence of protected areas, are relevant for explaining the pattern of species' frequencies and its change over time. Our results suggest that the flora of the city, notwithstanding the steady human pressure and the increase in alien species, maintained a high level of heterogeneity.

Vascular flora of Punta Arenas city: comparative analysis of composition, life forms, and biogeographic origins

“…Currently, there are more than 10,000 cities in the world [42], of which less than 1% have been studied in floristic terms [5,8,43]. Urban flora not only serves as an indicator of how global, regional, and local biodiversity changes proceed [2], but also informs about citizen valuation of flora and vegetation, as well as the well-being services they provide [44,45].…”

Functional traits drive the fate of Orthoptera in urban areas

“…Besides, Rome has also been classified among the top‐ranking European cities at higher risk of heatwaves (Smid et al, 2019). Thermal stress may both directly and indirectly affect orthopterans, for example, by inducing vegetation changes (Welti et al, 2020), and significant distributional and compositional changes have been documented in floral assemblages in the study area (Fratarcangeli et al, 2022). Thus, we are confident that the decrease in narrow climatic‐niche species from our study area in the last decades may represent a genuine response of orthopterans to the disproportionately pressing effects of climate change in urban areas.…”