Good ag neighbors: Rare remnant plant species are better conserved in larger forest patches next to ag lands than urban

Because of publisher copyright restrictions I can't share the research abstract, however I can summarize an interesting study in 2006 that found that agricultural lands are better neighbors than urban land use that adjoin remnant woodlots. The study that was done in Spain found that plant species recorded were compared to levels of human disturbance and frequency. Results were determined that disturbance-type plant species decreased with increasing distance to forest edge. Rare forest species were richer in large patches adjacent ag-based lands as compared to small woodland patches in peri-urban areas.

New Study Shows Vegetation Controls the Future of the Water Cycle

“Plants are really the thermostat of the world,” says Léo Lemordant, Gentine’s PhD student and lead author of the paper. “They’re at the center of the water, energy, and carbon cycles. As they take up carbon from the atmosphere to thrive, they release water that they take from the soils. Doing that, they also cool off the surface, controlling the temperature that we all feel. Now we know that mainly plants—not simply precipitation or temperature—will tell us whether we will live in a drier or wetter world.”

Their study“Critical impact of vegetation physiology on the continental hydrologic cycle in response to increasing CO₂.”is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Authors are: Léo Lemordant (Columbia Engineering); Pierre Gentine (Columbia Engineering and Earth Institute); Abigail Swann (University of Washington); Benjamin I. Cook (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University); and Jacob Scheff (University of North Carolina, Charlotte).

Compact urban development with large open spaces slows bird declines

"We show that urban growth of any type reduces bird distributions overall, but compact development substantially slows these reductions at the city scale."

Sushinsky et al evaluated the changes in bird populations between sprawling cities and dense, compact cities. They found that while all urban growth reduces overall bird density but that compact cities have slower declines. In their 2012 Global Change Biology journal article that "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."

Sushinsky, J. R, Rhodes, J. R., Possingham, H. P., Gill, T. K. and Fuller, R. A. (2013) How should we grow cities to minimize their biodiversity impacts? Global Change Biology 19, 401–410.

Temporary wetlands are important too

Urban and Roehm's research on studying temporary wetlands and associated species was published in the January 2018 Oecologia. It observesthat exurban ponds tend to be designed and managed as permanent waterbodies which retain permanent wetland species but fewer temporary wetland types.

Swamp Forest Exhibit at Crosby Arboretum was designed as a temporary stream corridor

"Exurban areas are expanding throughout the world, yet their effects on local biodiversity remain poorly understood. Wetlands, in particular, face ongoing and substantial threats from exurban development. We predicted that exurbanization would reduce the diversity of wetland amphibian and invertebrate communities and that more spatially aggregated residential development would leave more undisturbed natural land, thereby promoting greater local diversity. Using structural equation models, we tested a series of predictions about the direct and indirect pathways by which exurbanization extent, spatial pattern, and wetland characteristics might affect diversity patterns in 38 wetlands recorded during a growing season. We used redundancy, indicator species, and nested community analyses to evaluate how exurbanization affected species composition. In contrast to expectations, we found higher diversity in exurban wetlands. We also found that housing aggregation did not significantly affect diversity. Exurbanization affected biodiversity indirectly by increasing roads and development, which promoted permanent wetlands with less canopy cover and more aquatic vegetation. These pond characteristics supported greater diversity. However, exurbanization was associated with fewer temporary wetlands and fewer of the species that depend on these habitats. Moreover, the best indicator species for an exurban wetland was the ram’s head snail, a common disease vector in disturbed ponds. Overall, results suggest that exurbanization is homogenizing wetlands into more permanent water bodies. These more permanent, exurban ponds support higher overall animal diversity, but exclude temporary wetland specialists. Conserving the full assemblage of wetland species in expanding exurban regions throughout the world will require protecting and creating temporary wetlands."

Abstract cited from: Urban, M.C. & Roehm, R. Oecologia (2018) 186: 291. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-017-3989-y

CO2 sensor network shows effects of metro growth

“In a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by atmospheric scientists Logan Mitchell and John Lin report that suburban sprawl increases CO2 emissions more than similar population growth in a developed urban core.

“The general thought is that more compact cities on a per capita basis emits less carbon,” Lin says. “Some of these cities also have these expanding fringes. These places are less ‘green’, so to speak. That expanding frontier is moving.””

Published in https://unews.utah.edu/u-co2-sensor-network/

Green spaces in cities help control floods, store carbon

Abstract: "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 five 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 trade-offs 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."

Ziter, C. and Turner, M. G. (2018), Current and historical land use influence soil-based ecosystem services in an urban landscape. Ecological Applications. doi: 10.1002/eap.1689

New York Metropolitan Flora project

In 1990 the Brooklyn Botanic Garden embarked on the New York Metropolitan Flora project (NYMF), a multiyear effort to document the flora in all counties within a 50-mile radius of New York City, including all of Long Island, southeastern New York State, northern New Jersey and Fairfield County, Connecticut. Garden staff collect woody plant data and have created an online encyclopedia that shows plant data and maps of the New York metro region. For more on this project or to view the encyclopedia, visit https://www.bbg.org/collections/nymf