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Testing the effects of four urbanization filters on forest plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Lopez, BE; Urban, D; White, PS
Published in: Ecological Applications : a Publication of the Ecological Society of America
December 2018

Ongoing urban development has significant effects on ecosystems, including changes to land cover, environmental conditions, and species' distributions. These various impacts may have opposing or interacting effects on plant communities, making it difficult to predict how plant biodiversity will respond to urban development. A frequently cited conceptual framework predicts how urban development influences plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity by simplifying multiple coincident effects of urbanization into four primary filters of biodiversity: habitat transformation, fragmentation, the urban environment, and human preferences. Each filter prevents some plant species from persisting in urban areas while promoting others, but species introductions according to human preferences are expected to cause a net increase in biodiversity while the other filters limit diversity. In this study, we used structural equation modeling to test these predictions and examine the relative importance of each filter on the taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity of riparian forest plant species sampled along an urban-to-rural gradient in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. Most diversity measures declined with urbanization, but some (e.g., functional Rao's Q) increased with urbanization. We found support for some of the predicted relationships between urbanization filters and biodiversity, as well as some unexpected relationships, including positive effects of urban environments. Overall, urban environments and human preferences were stronger predictors than habitat transformation and fragmentation. Our approach could be used to test a general framework predicting the effects of urbanization on plant diversity across multiple cities and contribute to a more synthetic understanding of urban biodiversity.

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Published In

Ecological Applications : a Publication of the Ecological Society of America

DOI

ISSN

1051-0761

Publication Date

December 2018

Volume

28

Issue

8

Start / End Page

2197 / 2205

Related Subject Headings

  • Urbanization
  • Trees
  • Phylogeny
  • North Carolina
  • Magnoliopsida
  • Forests
  • Ecology
  • Biodiversity
  • 07 Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences
  • 06 Biological Sciences
 

Citation

APA
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MLA
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Lopez, B. E., Urban, D., & White, P. S. (2018). Testing the effects of four urbanization filters on forest plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity. Ecological Applications : A Publication of the Ecological Society of America, 28(8), 2197–2205. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1812
Lopez, Bianca E., Dean Urban, and Peter S. White. “Testing the effects of four urbanization filters on forest plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity.Ecological Applications : A Publication of the Ecological Society of America 28, no. 8 (December 2018): 2197–2205. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1812.
Lopez BE, Urban D, White PS. Testing the effects of four urbanization filters on forest plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity. Ecological Applications : a Publication of the Ecological Society of America. 2018 Dec;28(8):2197–205.
Lopez, Bianca E., et al. “Testing the effects of four urbanization filters on forest plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity.Ecological Applications : A Publication of the Ecological Society of America, vol. 28, no. 8, Dec. 2018, pp. 2197–205. Epmc, doi:10.1002/eap.1812.
Lopez BE, Urban D, White PS. Testing the effects of four urbanization filters on forest plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity. Ecological Applications : a Publication of the Ecological Society of America. 2018 Dec;28(8):2197–2205.
Journal cover image

Published In

Ecological Applications : a Publication of the Ecological Society of America

DOI

ISSN

1051-0761

Publication Date

December 2018

Volume

28

Issue

8

Start / End Page

2197 / 2205

Related Subject Headings

  • Urbanization
  • Trees
  • Phylogeny
  • North Carolina
  • Magnoliopsida
  • Forests
  • Ecology
  • Biodiversity
  • 07 Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences
  • 06 Biological Sciences