Plant traits and extinction in urban areas: a meta-analysis of 11 cities

Abstract

Aim Urban environments around the world share many features in common, including the local extinction of native plant species. We tested the hypothesis that similarity in environmental conditions among urban areas should select for plant species with a particular suite of traits suited to those conditions, and lead to the selective extinction of species lacking those traits.Location Eleven cities with data on the plant species that persisted and those that went locally extinct within at least the last 100 years following urbanization.Methods We compiled data on 11 plant traits for 8269 native species in the 11 cities and used hierarchical logistic regression models to identify the degree to which traits could distinguish species that persisted from those that went locally extinct in each city. The trait effects from each city were then combined in a meta-analysis. ResultsThe cities fell into two groups: those with relatively low rates of extinction (less than 0.05% species per year -Adelaide, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco), for which no traits reliably predicted the pattern of extinction, and those with higher rates of extinction (> 0.08% species per year -Auckland, Chicago, Melbourne, New York, Singapore and Worcester, MA), where shortstatured, small-seeded plants were more likely to go extinct.Main conclusions Our analysis reveals patterns in trait selectivity consistent with local studies, suggesting some consistency in trait selection by urbanization. Overall, however, few traits reliably predicted the pattern of plant extinction across cities, making it difficult to identify a priori the extinction-prone species most likely to be affected by urban expansion.

Recent declines and range changes of orchids in Western Europe (France, Belgium and Luxembourg)

“…This result is consistent with the meta-analysis conducted by Duncan et al (2011) based on more than 8000 plant species, and that identified Orchidaceae as the plant family with the greatest extinction risk in the vicinity of cities. Urbanization can have numerous direct or indirect effects on orchid survival, such as competition with invasive species and population size reduction (Duncan et al, 2011;Meekers and Honnay, 2011). The loss of natural open habitat in the North of our study area may also induce significantly more declines in heliophilous species compared to sciaphilous species (Fig.…”

“…Third, orchids are particularly vulnerable to climate and land-cover changes (Wotavova et al, 2004;Pfeifer et al, 2006) due to their narrow ecological preferences. Declines in occurrence and population size of many orchid species have already been observed in Europe (Jacquemyn et al, 2005;Kull and Hutchings, 2006;Schatz et al, 2014), as well as in other continents (Whigham and Willems, 2003;Duncan et al, 2011). It is thus crucial to understand the drivers of distribution changes of orchids.…”

A meta‐analysis of the effects of urbanization on ground beetle communities

“…To our knowledge, meta-analysis has rarely been performed to synthesize the findings of biotic responses to urbanization (but see Chamberlain et al 2009 andDuncan et al 2011), and no such quantitative summary has been published for arthropods. Arthropods are nearly ubiquitous, hyperdiverse, and form important parts of most terrestrial food webs.…”

Quantifying the Impact of Different Ways to Delimit Study Areas on the Assessment of Species Diversity of an Urban Forest

“…Transitional areas in the BUA consisted primarily of undeveloped or demolished building sites. Soil compaction, pollutants, and other urban environmental stresses in these sites favor stress-tolerant and ruderal species [10,47,48]. The most frequently occurring herbaceous species found on these lands (e.g., Eleusine.…”