A global analysis of the impacts of urbanization on bird and plant diversity reveals key anthropogenic drivers

By Myla F. J. Aronson, F. L. La Sorte, C. Nilon, Madhusudan Katti, Mark A. Goddard, Christopher Lepczyk, P. Warren, N. Williams, S. Cilliers, B. Clarkson and 14 more. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences, 2014

1,650 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/90f0ccff1af8ce0142e29bf7696551c315bade85

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Citations in the corpus

Which Traits Influence Bird Survival in the City? A Review (2021, background): “[8] observed that the community is dominated by locally adapted species, with only five percent non-native species.”
Is local biodiversity declining or not? A summary of the debate over analysis of species richness time trends (2018, methodology): “When historical baselines are not available, we will need to use multiple types of data, including BACI designs and spatial references as others have done (Aronson et al., 2014; Murphy and Romanuk, 2014; Newbold et al., 2015).”
Small urban centres as launching sites for plant invasions in natural areas: insights from South Africa (2017, background): “This was expected given the wellestablished finding that alien species diversity is positively correlated with human population density (van Rensburg et al. 2009; Spear et al. 2013; Aronson et al. 2014a, b).”
Are urban systems beneficial, detrimental, or indifferent for biological invasion? (2017, background): “In a global analysis, Aronson et al. (2014) found that there tends to be more native bird and plant species than NIS in cities, simply because of the larger native species pools, but they also found that native diversity in cities was just a fraction of what would be found in intact habitats.”
The origin of urban communities: From the regional species pool to community assemblages in city (2020, background): “…as a close-knit mosaic of habitats, provides habitat to important portions of global biodiversity, including rare, endemic and threatened species (Aronson et al., 2014; Hall et al., 2017; Ives et al., 2016; Sattler et al., 2011), while supporting urban ecosystem processes and services (e.g.…”
A global map of urban extent from nightlights (2015, background): “…into vegetated lands compromises ecosystem services by reducing photosynthetic production, altering carbon flux, and threatening biodiversity (Imhoff et al 2004, Foley et al 2005, Parshall et al 2010, Zhou et al 2010, Martínez-Zarzoso andMaruotti 2011, Zhou et al 2013, Aronson et al 2014).”
Urbanisation and Its Effects on Bats—A Global Meta-Analysis (2016, background): “Thus, the flora and fauna of cities are becoming increasingly homogeneous (Hobbs et al. 2006; Grimm et al. 2008), however recent evidence suggests that many cities still retain several endemic species (Aronson et al. 2014).”
Plant-hummingbird interaction networks in urban areas: Generalization and the importance of trees with specialized flowers as a nectar resource for pollinator conservation (2019, background): “For instance, urbanization may lead to increased biotic homogenization and favour generalist species, with negative consequences for the functioning of ecosystem processes in urban areas (Aronson et al., 2014; Chace and Walsh, 2006; Coetzee et al., 2018; Pauw and Louw, 2012).”
Experimental demonstration of an ecological trap for a wild bird in a human-transformed environment (2016, background): “Urbanization is a fastdeveloping process worldwide, currently involving more than 50% of the human population (Gaston, Visser, & H€ olker, 2015; Marzluff, 2001) and more than 3% of the global terrestrial area (Aronson et al., 2014).”
Adaptation and Adaptedness of Organisms to Urban Environments (2015, background): “In the past decade, the creation and growth of cities and towns have been identified as major threats to global biodiversity (Aronson et al. 2014, McDonald et al. 2008, Secr.”