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143 results for “urban landscape”
Urban tree pests can support biological control services in landscape shrubs
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Nectar values from: Quantifying nectar production by flowering plants in urban and rural landscapes
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Data from: Habitat restorations in an urban landscape rapidly assemble diverse pollinator communities that persist
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Data from: Vegetation biomass and landscape context shape web-building spider dietary niche breadth in urban vacant lots
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Data from: Plant-pollinator interactions along an urbanization gradient from cities and villages to farmland landscapes
<p>Urbanization affects pollinator diversity and plant-pollinator networks by changing resource availability locally and in the surrounding landscape. We experimentally established (N = 12) standardized plant communities in farmland, villages and cities to identify the relative role of local and landscape effects on plant-pollinator communities along this urbanization gradient. We found that the number of flower visits by solitary bees, but not bumblebees, were highest in cities and lowest in farmland, with villages being intermediate, whereas syrphid flies exhibited lowest numbers in cities. Villages supported the richest pollinator communities, as they appeared to benefit from both farmland and city communities. Plant-pollinator network metrics such as robustness, interaction evenness and interaction diversity decreased with increasing urbanization, although local plant richness increased towards urban areas. In conclusion, pollinator communities were most diverse and stable in farmland and village sites, despite the high plant richness in cities. The different composition of pollinator communities along the urbanization gradient suggests considering all three landscape types for conservation schemes.</p>
Data from: Landscape genetics reveals unique and shared effects of urbanization for two sympatric pool-breeding amphibians
Metapopulation-structured species can be negatively affected when landscape fragmentation impairs connectivity. We investigated the effects of urbanization on genetic diversity and gene flow for two sympatric amphibian species, spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) and wood frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus), across a large (>35,000 km2) landscape in Maine, USA, containing numerous natural and anthropogenic gradients. Isolation by distance (IBD) patterns differed between the species. Spotted salamanders showed a linear and relatively high variance relationship between genetic and geographic distance (r = 0.057; p < 0.001); whereas, wood frogs exhibited a strongly non-linear and lower variance relationship (r = 0.429; p < 0.001). Scale dependence analysis of IBD found gene flow has its most predictable influence (strongest IBD correlations) at distances up to 9 km for spotted salamanders and up to 6 km for wood frogs. Estimated effective migration surfaces revealed contrasting patterns of high and low genetic diversity and gene flow between the two species. Population isolation, quantified as the mean IBD residuals for each population, was associated with local urbanization and less genetic diversity in both species. The influence of geographic proximity and urbanization on population connectivity was further supported by distance-based redundancy analysis and multiple matrix regression with randomization. Resistance surface modelling found interpopulation connectivity to be influenced by developed land cover, light roads, interstates, and topography for both species, plus secondary roads and rivers for wood frogs. Our results highlight the influence of anthropogenic landscape features within the context of natural features and broad spatial genetic patterns, in turn supporting the premise that while urbanization significantly restricts interpopulation connectivity for wood frogs and spotted salamanders, specific landscape elements have unique effects on these two sympatric species.
Conservation in post-industrial cities: how does vacant land management and landscape configuration influence urban bees?
<p>1. Rich pollinator assemblages are documented in some cities despite habitat fragmentation and degradation, suggesting that urban areas have potential as pollinator refuges. To inform urban bee conservation, we assessed local and landscape scale drivers of bee community composition and foraging within vacant lots of Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Cleveland is a shrinking city, a type of urban area that has an over-abundance of vacated greenspaces as a result of population loss and subsequent demolition of abandoned infrastructure. As such, Cleveland represents over 350 post-industrial cities worldwide, that are all promising locations for bee conservation.</p> <p>2. Across a network of 56 residential vacant lots (each ~30m x 12m), we established seven unique habitats, including seeded native prairies, to investigate how vegetation management and landscape context at a 1500m radius influenced urban bee communities. We assessed the distribution of several bee functional traits, diversity, and abundance with pan and malaise traps. Foraging frequency was determined with plant-pollinator interaction networks derived from vacuum collections of bees at flowers.</p> <p>3. We observed higher bee richness and increased abundance of smaller sized bees as the size of surrounding greenspace patches increased within a 1500m radius landscape buffer. Within habitats, greater plant biomass positively influenced bee community richness and abundance whereas taller vegetation was a negative influence. Plant-pollinator interaction networks were dominated by spontaneous non-native vegetation, illustrating that this forage supports urban bees.</p> <p>4. Synthesis and applications: Our study indicates that proximity to larger greenspaces within an urban landscape promotes overall bee richness and increased occurrence of smaller bee species within residential vacant lots. While we did not observe our seeded native plants enhancing the bee community, native wildflowers were still establishing during the study and may have a greater influence when blooming at higher densities. Importantly, spontaneous non-native vegetation provided the majority of urban bee's forage. Thus, vacant land that is minimally managed and vegetated with what many consider undesirable "weeds", provides valuable habitat for bee conservation in cities.</p>
Data from: Phenotypic selection on floral traits in an urban landscape
Native species are increasingly living in urban landscapes associated with abiotic and biotic changes that may influence patterns of phenotypic selection. However, measures of selection in urban and non-urban environments, and exploration of the mechanisms associated with such changes, are uncommon. Plant-animal interactions have played a central role in the evolution of flowering plants and are sensitive to changes in the urban landscape, and thus provide opportunities to explore how urban environments modify selection. We evaluated patterns of phenotypic selection on floral and resistance traits of Gelsemium sempervirens in urban and non-urban sites. The urban landscape had increased florivory and decreased pollen receipt, but showed only modest differences in patterns of selection. Directional selection for one trait, larger floral display size, was stronger in urban compared to non-urban sites. Neither quadratic nor correlational selection significantly differed between urban and non-urban sites. Pollination was associated with selection for larger floral display size in urban compared to non-urban sites, due to differences in the translation of pollination into seeds rather than pollinator selectivity. Thus, our data suggest that urban landscapes may not result in sweeping differences in phenotypic selection but rather modest differences for some traits, potentially mediated by species interactions.
Data from: Current and historical land use influence soil-based ecosystem services in an urban landscape
Urban landscapes are increasingly recognized as providing important ecosystem services (ES) to their occupants. Yet, urban ES assessments often ignore the complex spatial heterogeneity and land-use history of cities. Soil-based services may be particularly susceptible to land-use legacy effects. We studied indicators of three soil-based ES – carbon storage, water quality regulation, and runoff regulation – in a historically agricultural urban landscape and asked: (1) How do ES indicators vary with contemporary land cover and time since development? (2) Do ES indicators vary primarily among land-cover classes, within land-cover classes, or within sites? (3) What is the relative contribution of urban land-cover classes to potential citywide ES provision? We measured biophysical indicators (soil carbon (C), available phosphorus (P), and saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks)) in 100 sites across 5 land-cover classes, spanning an ~125 year gradient of time since development within each land-cover class. Potential for ES provision was substantial in urban green spaces, including developed land. Runoff regulation services (high Ks) were highest in forests; water quality regulation (low P) was highest in open spaces and grasslands; and open spaces and developed land (e.g., residential yards) had the highest C storage. In developed land covers, both C and P increased with time since development, indicating effects of historical land-use on contemporary ES and tradeoffs between two important ES. Among-site differences accounted for a high proportion of variance in soil properties in forests, grasslands, and open space, while residential areas had high within-site variability – underscoring the leverage city residents have to improve urban ES provision. Developed land covers contributed most ES supply at the citywide scale, even after accounting for potential impacts of impervious surfaces. Considering the full mosaic of urban green space and its history is needed to estimate the kinds and magnitude of ES provided in cities, and to augment regional ES assessments that often ignore or underestimate urban ES supply.
Addressing the Challenge of Wildlife Conservation in Urban Landscapes by Increasing Human Tolerance for Wildlife
<p>Data that supports the journal manuscript: Puri, M., Johannsen, K.L., Goode, K.O., & Pienaar, E.F. (2024) Addressing the challenge of wildlife conservation in urban landscapes by increasing human tolerance for wildlife. <em>People and Nature.</em></p>
Butterfly community composition within a tropical urban landscape is influenced by habitat type and temperature
<p>The specific factors that influence spatial community or population dynamics are often elusive, and even less known is the impact of tropical urban landscapes on diverse species community assemblages. To address this knowledge gap, we used a survey data set with 510 fruit‐feeding butterflies comprising 20 species across two heterogeneous habitats within a city in Nigeria. Next, we constructed generalised linear mixed models to understand the differential responses of the butterfly community to changes in environmental conditions across habitats. Butterfly species community assemblages significantly differed between the two urban habitats, with butterfly species significantly higher in the savannah woodland compared with the gallery forest due to the optimal daily temperatures of the savannah woodland. However, butterfly richness was lower in the gallery forest due to extreme environmental conditions. This study highlights that butterfly community changes in tropical urban landscapes are possibly responding to local microclimates and spatial heterogeneity across habitats. For evidence‐based conservation management of tropical butterfly biodiversity, there would be a need for a long‐term, extensive and systematic insect monitoring programme for butterflies across disturbed and undisturbed fragmented habitats harbouring diverse insect species.</p>
Data from: Landscape context and substrate characteristics shape fungal communities of dead spruce in urban and semi-natural forests
<p>Data from:</p> <p>Korhonen, A., Miettinen, O., Kotze, D.J., & Hamberg, L. (2022). Landscape context and substrate characteristics shape fungal communities of dead spruce in urban and semi-natural forests. Environmental Microbiology. DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.15903</p> <p>This dataset contains occurrence data of 475 fungal ITS2 sequence clusters (OTUs) across 360 sequenced samples originating from dead wood of Norway spruce (<em>Picea abies</em>). Wood samples were collected from 90 downed spruce trunks, at four points from each trunk. Trunks were at intermediate stages of decay and located in spruce-dominated stands in 24 urban forests (66 trunks) and in 8 rural semi-natural forests (24 trunks) in southern Finland. The data consists of an OTU table (sequence read counts in each sample) and sample metadata (locality information, trunk characteristics and environmental variables).</p>
Data set for "Local and landscape correlates of coccinellid species richness, abundance, and assemblage change along a rural–urban gradient in Quintana Roo, Mexico."
<p>Data set for original article "Local and landscape correlates of coccinellid species richness, abundance, and assemblage change along a rural–urban gradient in Quintana Roo, Mexico"<strong> </strong>accepted at Biotropica.</p> <p>We studied changes in coccinellid assemblage composition, diversity, species richness and abundance in domestic gardens along a rural to urban gradient in southeastern Mexico, and identified local and lanscape variables that determine their species richness and abundance. </p>
Fig. 4 in Landuse Patterns, Air Quality And Bird Diversity In Urban Landscapes Of Delhi
Fig. 4. Variation in abundance of foraging guilds (%) of birds among different sampling sites.
Fig. 1 in Landuse Patterns, Air Quality And Bird Diversity In Urban Landscapes Of Delhi
Fig. 1. Map of Delhi showing location of sampling sites.
Functional diversity of farmland bees across rural-urban landscapes in a tropical megacity
Urbanization is a major threat to biodiversity and food security, as expanding cities, especially in the Global South, increasingly compete with natural and agricultural lands. However, the impact of urban expansion on agricultural biodiversity in tropical regions is overlooked. Here we assessed how urbanization affects the functional response of farmland bees, the most important pollinators for crop production. We sampled bees across three seasons in 36 conventional vegetable-producing farms spread along an urbanization gradient in Bengaluru, an Indian megacity. We investigated how landscape and local environmental drivers affected different functional traits (sociality, nesting behaviour, body size and specialization) and functional diversity (functional dispersion) of bee communities. We found that the functional responses to urbanization were trait specific with more positive than negative effects of grey area (sealed surfaces and buildings) on species richness, functional diversity and abundance of most functional groups. As expected, larger, solitary, cavity-nesting, and surprisingly, specialist bees benefitted from urbanization. In contrast to temperate cities, the abundance of ground-nesters increased in urban areas, presumably because larger patches of bare soil were still available besides roads and buildings. However, overall bee abundance and the abundance of social bees (85% of all bees) decreased with urbanization, threatening crop pollination. Crop diversity promoted taxonomic and functional diversity of bee communities. Locally, flower resources promoted the abundance of all functional groups, and natural vegetation could maintain diverse pollinator communities throughout the year, especially during the non-cropping season. However, exotic plants decreased functional diversity and bee specialization. To safeguard bees and their pollination services in urban farms, we recommend (1) to preserve semi-natural vegetation (hedges) around cropping fields to provide nesting opportunities for above-ground nesters, (2) to promote farm-level crop diversification of beneficial crops (e.g., pulses, vegetables and spices), (3) to maintain native natural vegetation along field-margins, (4) to control and remove invasive exotic plants that disrupt native plant-pollinator interactions. Overall, our results suggest that urban agriculture can maintain functionally diverse bee communities and, if managed in a sustainable manner, can be used to develop win-win solutions for biodiversity conservation of pollinators and food security in and around cities.
Rare species biodiversity, socio-demographics and local and landscape characteristics in Northern California community urban gardens
<p>Cities are sometimes characterized as homogenous with species assemblages composed of abundant, generalist species having similar ecological functions. Under this assumption, rare species, or species observed infrequently, would have especially high conservation value in cities for their potential to increase functional diversity. Management to increase the number of rare species in cities could be an important conservation strategy in a rapidly urbanizing world. However, most studies of species rarity define rarity in relatively pristine environments where human management and disturbance is minimized. We know little about what species are rare, how many species are rare, and what management practices promote rare species in urban environments. Here, we identified which plants and species of birds and bees that control pests and pollinate crops are rare in urban gardens and assessed how social, biophysical factors, and cross-taxonomic comparisons influence rare species richness. We found overwhelming numbers of rare species, with over 50% of plant cultivars observed classified as rare. Our results highlight the importance of women, older individuals, and gardeners who live closer to garden sites in increasing the number of rare plants within urban areas. Fewer rare plants were found in older gardens and gardens with more bare soil. There were more rare bird species in larger gardens and more rare bee species where canopy cover was higher. We also found that in some cases, rarity begets rarity, with positive correlations found between the number of rare plants and bee species and between bee and bird species. Overall, our results suggest that urban gardens include a high number of species existing at low frequency and that social and biophysical factors promoting rare, planned biodiversity can cascade down to promote rare, associated biodiversity.</p>
Variety is the spice of life: flying-foxes exploit a variety of native and exotic food plants in an urban landscape mosaic
<p><span>Generally, urbanization is a major threat to biodiversity; however, urban areas also provide habitats that some species can exploit. Flying-foxes (<em>Pteropus</em> spp.) are becoming increasingly urbanized; which is thought to be a result of increased availability and temporal stability of urban food resources, diminished natural food resources, or both. Previous research has shown that urban-roosting grey-headed flying-foxes (<em>Pteropus</em> <em>poliocephalus</em>) preferentially forage in human-modified landscapes. However, which land-use areas and food plants support its presence in urban areas is unknown. We tracked nine <em>P</em>. <em>poliocephalus</em> roosting in Adelaide, South Australia, between December 2019 and May 2020, using global positioning systems (GPS), to investigate how individuals used the urban landscape mosaic for feeding. The most frequently visited land-use category was "residential" (40% of fixes) followed by "road-side," "reserves" and "primary production" (13–14% each). However, "reserves" were visited four times more frequently than expected from their areal availability, followed by the "residential" and "road-side" categories that were visited approximately twice more than expected each; in contrast, the "primary production" category was visited approximately five times less than expected. These results suggest that while residential areas provide most foraging resources supporting Adelaide's flying-fox population, reserves contain foraging resources that are particularly attractive to <em>P</em>. <em>poliocephalus</em>. Primary production land was relatively less utilized, presumably because it contains few food resources. Throughout, flying-foxes visited an eclectic mixture of diet plants (49 unique species), with a majority of feeding fixes (63%) to locally indigenous Australian native species; however, in residential areas 53% of feeding visits were to non-locally indigenous species, vs only 13% in reserves. Flowering and fruiting phenology records of the food plants visited further indicated that non-locally indigenous species increase the temporal availability of foraging resources for <em>P</em>. <em>poliocephalus</em> in urban Adelaide. Our findings demonstrate the importance of residential areas for urban-roosting <em>P</em>. <em>poliocephalus</em>, and suggest that the anthropogenic mixture of food resources available in the urban landscape mosaic supports the species' year-round presence in urban areas. Our results further highlight the importance of conserving natural habitats within the urban landscape mosaic, and stress the need for accounting for wildlife responses to urban greening initiatives.</span></p>
Pollen limitation of native plant reproduction in an urban landscape
<p><strong>Premise</strong>: Evidence suggests that bees may benefit from moderate levels of human development. However, the effects of human development on pollination and reproduction of bee-pollinated plants are less well understood. Studies have measured natural variation in pollination and plant reproduction as a function of urbanization, but few have experimentally measured the magnitude of pollen limitation in urban versus non-urban sites. Doing so is important to unambiguously link changes in pollination to plant reproduction. Previous work in the Southeastern US found that urban sites supported twice the abundance of bees compared to non-urban sites. We tested the hypothesis that greater bee abundance in some of the same urban sites translates into reduced pollen limitation compared to non-urban sites.</p> <p><strong>Methods</strong>: We manipulated pollination to three native, wild-growing, bee-pollinated plants: <em>Gelsemium sempervirens</em>, <em>Oenothera fruticosa</em>, and <em>Campsis radicans</em>. Using supplemental pollinations, we tested for pollen limitation of three components of female reproduction in paired urban and non-urban sites. We also measured pollen receipt as a proxy for pollinator visitation.</p> <p><strong>Results</strong>: We found that all three plant species were pollen-limited for some measures of female reproduction. However, opposite to our original hypothesis, two of the three species were more pollen-limited in urban relative to non-urban sites. We found that open-pollinated flowers in urban sites received less conspecific and more heterospecific pollen on average than those in non-urban sites.</p> <p><strong>Conclusions</strong>: These results suggest that even when urban sites have more abundant pollinators, this may not alleviate pollen limitation of native plant reproduction in urban landscapes.</p>
Stylized urban landscapes optimized for compactness, climate regulation and vascular plant species richness
<p>The data set provides the output of a genetic algorithm optimizing a stylized urban region with respect to three target functions: urban compactness, climate regulation as an exemplary ecosystem service and vascular plant species richness as a measure of biodiversity.</p> <p>The optimisation varies the spatial allocation of three types of land cover blocks in a stylized urban region: high- and low-density and park blocks which consist of green and/or built-up cells. We systematically vary landscape composition at the block level, but keep city size constant.</p> <p>The data set is related to a publication submitted to Frontiers in Environmental Science.</p>
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These curated guides explain access requirements, typical timelines, costs, and reuse considerations for widely used research datasets.
Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.