Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-20T02:50:54.713Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Island biogeography of insect conservation in urban green spaces

Part of: Humans and Island Environments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2017

SIMONE FATTORINI ,
CRISTINA MANTONI ,
LIVIA DE SIMONI  and
DIANA M.P. GALASSI
SIMONE FATTORINI*
Affiliation:
Department of Life, Health & Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila, 67100 L'Aquila, Italy CE3C – Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes/Azorean Biodiversity Group and Universidade dos Açores – Departamento de Ciências e Engenharia do Ambiente, Angra do Heroísmo, Açores, Portugal
CRISTINA MANTONI
Affiliation:
Via Apiro 58, 00138, Rome, Italy
LIVIA DE SIMONI
Affiliation:
Via del Ceraso 20, 67046, Ovindoli, L'Aquila, Italy
DIANA M.P. GALASSI
Affiliation:
Department of Life, Health & Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila, 67100 L'Aquila, Italy
*
*Correspondence: Dr Simone Fattorini e-mail: simone.fattorini@univaq.it
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Because of their isolation, biotic communities of urban green spaces are expected to be similar to those of oceanic islands. This should be particularly true for insects, which represent an important component of urban faunas. The equilibrium theory of island biogeography (ETIB) allows for the formulation of some hypotheses regarding the influence of the geographical characteristics of green spaces on insect species richness and extinction risk. Based on island biogeography principles, we present eight predictions on how green space characteristics should influence insect species richness and loss. We analysed the current literature in order to determine which predictions were supported and which were not. We found that many studies gave outcomes that support ETIB predictions about the effects of area and isolation of green spaces; we found no strong support for predictions about shape and extent of native habitat in the literature that we reviewed. Most of the available studies dealt with patterns in species richness, whereas insect species loss has been rarely investigated. Future developments in the application of island biogeography principles to urban insect conservation should address temporal trends in species persistence and the analysis of species co-occurrence and nestedness.

Keywords

arthropodsconservation biologyequilibrium theorygreen infrastructureislandsspecies richnessurbanizationurban parks
Type
Subject Review
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 45 , Issue 1: Thematic section. Humans and Island Environments , March 2018 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adler, F.R. & Tanner, C.J. (2013), Urban Ecosystems, Ecological Principles for the Built Environment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Alvarenga, R.D., De Castro, M.M., Santos-Prezoto, H.H. & Prezoto, F. (2010) Nesting of social wasps (Hymenoptera, Vespidae) in urban gardens in Southeastern Brazil. Sociobiology 55: 445–452.Google Scholar
Angold, P.G., Sadler, J.P., Hill, M.O., Pullin, A., Rushton, S., Austin, K., Small, E., Wood, B., Wadsworth, R., Sanderson, R. & Thompson, K. (2006) Biodiversity in urban habitat patches. Science of the Total Environment 360: 196–204.Google Scholar
Andrén, H. (1994) Effects of habitat fragmentation on birds and mammals in landscapes with different proportions of suitable habitat: a review. Oikos 71: 355–366.Google Scholar
Baz, A. & Monserrat, V.J. (1999) Distribution of domestic Psocoptera in Madrid apartments. Medical and Veterinary Entomology 13: 259–264.Google Scholar
Blair, R.B. & Launer, A.E. (1997) Butterfly diversity and human land use: species assemblages along an urban gradient. Biological Conservation 80: 113–125.Google Scholar
Bode, R.F. & Maciejewski, A. (2014) Herbivore biodiversity varies with patch size in an urban archipelago. International Journal of Insect Science 6: 49–55.Google Scholar
Bolger, D.T., Suarez, A.V., Crooks, K.R., Morrison, S.A. & Case, T.J. (2000) Arthropods in urban habitat fragments in southern California: area, age and edge effects. Ecological Applications 10: 1230–1248.Google Scholar
Bräuniger, C., Knapp, S., Kuhn, I. & Klotz, S. (2010) Testing taxonomic and landscape surrogates for biodiversity in an urban setting. Landscape and Urban Planning 97: 283–295.Google Scholar
Breuste, J., Haase, D. & Elmqvist, T. (2013) Urban landscapes and ecosystem services. In: Ecosystem Services in Agricultural and Urban Landscapes, eds. Wratten, S., Sandhu, H., Cullen, R. & Costanza, R., pp. 83–104. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burns, K.C. & Neufeld, C.J. (2009) Plant extinction dynamics in an insular metacommunity. Oikos 118: 191–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, K.M., Fisher, B.L. & LeBuhn, G. (2008) The influence of urban park characteristics on ant (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) communities. Urban Ecosystems 11: 317–334.Google Scholar
Clark, A.T., Rykken, J.J. & Farrell, B.D. (2011) The effects of biogeography on ant diversity and activity on the Boston harbor islands, Massachusetts, USA. PLoS One 6: e28045.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, C.B. & Moore, P.D. (2010) Biogeography. An Ecological and Evolutionary Approach. Eighth edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Google Scholar
Davis, B.N.K. (1979) The ground arthropods of London gardens. London Naturalist 58: 15–24.Google Scholar
Davies, K.F., Gascon, C. & Margules, C.R. (2001) Habitat fragmentation: consequences, management, and future research priorities. In: Conservation Biology. Research Priorities for the Next Decade, eds. Soulé, M.E. & Orians, G.H., pp. 81–97. Washington, DC: Society for Conservation Biology, Island Press.Google Scholar
Davies, K.F. & Margules, C.R. (1998) Effects of habitat fragmentation on carabid beetles: experimental evidence. Journal of Animal Ecology 67: 460–471.Google Scholar
Dennis, R.L.H. (2010) A Resource-based Habitat View for Conservation. Butterflies in the British Landscape. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, J.M. (1975) The island dilemma: lessons of modern biogeographic studies for the design of natural reserves. Biological Conservation 7: 129–145.Google Scholar
Dias, P.C. (1996) Sources and sinks in population biology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 11: 326–330.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Donnelly, R. & Marzluff, J.M. (2004) Importance of reserve size and landscape context to urban bird conservation. Conservation Biology 18: 733–745.Google Scholar
Faeth, S.H. & Kane, T.C. (1978) Urban biogeography: city parks as islands for Diptera and Coleoptera. Oecologia 32: 127–133.Google Scholar
Fahrig, L. (1997) Relative effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on population extinction. Journal of Wildlife Management 61: 603–610.Google Scholar
Fattorini, S. (2010) The use of cumulative area curves in biological conservation: a cautionary note. Acta Oecologica 36: 255–258.Google Scholar
Fattorini, S. (2011a) Insect extinction by urbanization: a long term study in Rome. Biological Conservation 144: 370–375.Google Scholar
Fattorini, S. (2011b) Insect rarity, extinction and conservation in urban Rome (Italy): a 120-year-long study of tenebrionid beetles. Insect Conservation and Diversity 4: 307–315.Google Scholar
Fattorini, S. (2013) Species ecological preferences predict extinction risk in urban tenebrionid beetle guilds. Animal Biology 63: 93–106.Google Scholar
Fattorini, S. (2014a) Island biogeography of urban insects: tenebrionid beetles from Rome tell a different story. Journal of Insect Conservation 18: 729–735.Google Scholar
Fattorini, S. (2014b) Urban biodiversity hotspots are not related to the structure of green spaces: a case study of tenebrionid beetles from Rome, Italy. Urban Ecosystems 17: 1033–1045.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fattorini, S. (2016) Insects and the city: what island biogeography tells us about insect conservation in urban areas. Web Ecology 16: 41–45.Google Scholar
Fattorini, S., Dapporto, L., Strona, G., & Borges, P.A.V. (2015) Calling for a new strategy to measure environmental (habitat) diversity in island biogeography: a case study of Mediterranean tenebrionids (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae). Fragmenta Entomologica 47: 1–14.Google Scholar
Fetridge, E.D., Ascher, J.S. & Langellotto, G.A. (2008) The bee fauna of residential gardens in a suburb of New York City (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). Annals of the Entomological Society of America 101: 1067–1077.Google Scholar
Fortel, L., Henry, M., Guilbaud, L., Guirao, A.L., Kuhlmann, M., Mouret, H., Rollin, O. & Vaissière, B. E. (2014) Decreasing abundance, increasing diversity and changing structure of the wild bee community (Hymenoptera: Anthophila) along an urbanization gradient. PLoS One 9: e104679.Google Scholar
Fujita, A., Maetro, K., Kagawa, Y. & Ito, N. (2008) Effects of forest fragmentation on species richness and composition of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae and Brachinidae) in urban landscapes. Entomological Science 11: 39–48.Google Scholar
Gaublomme, E., Hendrickx, F., Dhuyvetter, H. & Desender, K. (2008) The effects of forest patch size and matrix type on changes in carabid beetle assemblages in an urbanized landscape. Biological Conservation 141: 2585–2596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibb, H. & Hochuli, D.F. (2002) Habitat fragmentation in an urban environment: large and small fragments support different arthropod assemblages. Biological Conservation 106: 91–100.Google Scholar
Giuliano, W.M., Accamando, A.K. & Mcadams, E.J. (2004) Lepidoptera–habitat relationships in urban parks. Urban Ecosystems 7: 361–370.Google Scholar
Gosselin, F. (1996) Extinction in a simple source/sink system: application of new mathematical results. Acta Oecologica 17: 563–584.Google Scholar
Hamerlik, L. & Brodersen, K.P. (2010) Non-biting midges (Diptera: Chironomidae) from fountains of two European cities: micro-scale island biogeography. Aquatic Insects 32: 67–79.Google Scholar
Hardy, P.B. & Dennis, R.L.H. (1999) The impact of urban development on butterflies within a city region. Biodiversity and Conservation 8: 1261–1279.Google Scholar
Heneghan, L., Mulvaney, C., Ross, K., Umek, L., Watkins, C., Westphal, L.M. & Wise, D.H. (2012) Lessons learned from Chicago wilderness – implementing and sustaining conservation management in an urban setting. Diversity 4: 74–93.Google Scholar
Hogsden, K.L. & Hutchinson, T.C. (2004) Butterfly assemblages along a human disturbance gradient in Ontario, Canada. Canadian Journal of Zoology 82: 739–748.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, M.C.R. & Hunter, M.D. (2008) Designing for conservation of insects in the built environment. Insect Conservation and Diversity 1: 189–196.Google Scholar
Jones, E.L. & Leather, S.R. (2012) Invertebrates in urban areas: a review. European Journal of Entomology 109: 463–478.Google Scholar
Knapp, S., Kuhn, I., Mosbrugger, V. & Klotz, S. (2008) Do protected areas in urban and rural landscapes differ in species diversity? Biodiversity and Conservation 17: 1595–1612.Google Scholar
Koh, L.P. & Sodhi, N.S. (2004) Importance of reserves, fragments, and parks for butterfly conservation in a tropical urban landscape. Ecological Applications 14: 1675–1708.Google Scholar
Koivula, M.J. & Vermeulen, H.J.W. (2005) Highways and forest fragmentation – effects on carabid beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae). Landscape Ecology 20: 911–926.Google Scholar
Kotze, D.J., Lehvävirta, S., Koivula, M., O'Hara, R.B. & Spence, J.R. (2012) Effects of habitat edges and trampling on the distribution of ground beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) in urban forests. Journal of Insect Conservation 16: 883–897.Google Scholar
Leather, S.R. & Helden, A.J. (2005) Magic roundabouts? Teaching conservation in schools and universities. Journal of Biological Education 39: 102–107.Google Scholar
Lizée, M.H., Mane, S., Mauffrey, J.F., Tatoni, T. & Deschamps-Cottin, M. (2012) Matrix configuration and patch isolation influences override the species–area relationship for urban butterfly communities. Journal of Landscape Ecology 27: 159–169.Google Scholar
Lomolino, M.V., Riddle, B.R., Whittaker, R.J. & Brown, J.H. (2010) Biogeography. Fourth Edition. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc.Google Scholar
MacArthur, R.H. & Wilson, E.O. (1963) An equilibrium theory of insular zoogeography. Evolution 17: 373–387.Google Scholar
MacArthur, R.H. & Wilson, E.O. (1967) The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Magura, T., Tóthmérész, B. & Molnár, T. (2001) Forest edge and diversity: carabids along forest–grassland transects. Biodiversity and Conservation 10: 287–300.Google Scholar
Marzluff, J.M. (2005) Island biogeography for an urbanizing world: how extinction and colonization may determine biological diversity in human-dominated landscapes. Urban Ecosystems 8: 157–177.Google Scholar
Matteson, K.C., Ascher, J.S., & Langellotto, G.A. (2008) Bee richness and abundance in New York City urban gardens. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 101: 140–150.Google Scholar
Matteson, K.C. & Langellotto, G.A. (2010) Determinates of inner city butterfly and bee species richness. Urban Ecosystems 13: 333–347.Google Scholar
McDonald, R.I., Marcotullio, P.J. & Güneralp, B. (2013) Urbanization and global trends in bodiversity and ecosystem services. In: Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities, eds. Elmqvist, T., Fragkias, M., Goodness, J., Güneralp, B., Marcotullio, P.J., McDonald, R.I., Parnell, S., Schewenius, M., Sendstad, M., Seto, K.C., & Wilkinson, C., pp. 31–52. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.Google Scholar
McDonnell, M.J. & Hahs, A.K. (2013) The future of urban biodiversity research: moving beyond the ‘low-hanging fruit’. Urban Ecosystems 16: 397–409.Google Scholar
McFrederick, Q.S. & LeBuhn, G. (2006) Are urban parks refuges for bumble bees, Bombus spp. (Hymenoptera: Apidae)? Biological Conservation 129: 372–382.Google Scholar
McIntyre, N.E. (2000) Ecology of urban arthropods: a review and a call to action. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 93: 825–835.Google Scholar
McKinney, M.L. (2008) Effects of urbanization on species richness: a review of plants and animals. Urban Ecosystems 11: 161–176.Google Scholar
Morrison, L.W. (2010) Long-term non-equilibrium dynamics of insular floras: a 17-year record. Global Ecology and Biogeography 19: 663–672.Google Scholar
New, T. (2015) Insect Conservation and Urban Environments. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.Google Scholar
Nielsen, A.B., van den Bosch, M., Maruthaveeran, S. & van den Bosch, K.C., (2014) Species richness in urban parks and its drivers: a review of empirical evidence. Urban Ecosystems 17: 305–327.Google Scholar
Öckinger, E., Dannestam, A. & Smith, H.G. (2009) The importance of fragmentation and habitat quality of urban grasslands for butterfly diversity. Landscape and Urban Planning 93: 31–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pacheco, R. & Vasconcelos, H.L. (2007) Invertebrate conservation in urban areas: ants in the Brazilian Cerrado. Landscape and Urban Planning 81: 193–199.Google Scholar
Pullin, A.S. & Stewart, G.B. (2006) Guidelines for systematic review in conservation and environmental management. Conservation Biology 20: 1647–1656.Google Scholar
Rey, J.R. (1981) Ecological biogeography of arthropods on Spartina Islands in northwest Florida. Ecological Monographs 51: 237–265.Google Scholar
Robinson, G.R., Yurlina, M.E., & Handel, S.N. (1994) A century of change in the Staten Island flora: ecological correlates of species losses and invasions. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 121: 119–129.Google Scholar
Saarinen, K., Valtonen, A., Jantunen, J. & Saarnio, S. (2005) Butterflies and diurnal moths along road verges: does road type affect diversity and abundance? Biological Conservation 123: 403–412.Google Scholar
Sadler, J.P., Small, E.C., Fiszpan, H., Telfer, M.G. & Niemelä, J. (2006) Investigating environmental variation and landscape characteristics of an urban–rural gradient using woodland carabid assemblages. Journal of Biogeography 33: 1126–1138.Google Scholar
Sattler, T., Obristb, M.K., Duellib, P. & Moretti, M. (2011) Urban arthropod communities: added value or just a blend of surrounding biodiversity? Landscape and Urban Planning 103: 347–361.Google Scholar
Schiller, A. & Horn, S.P. (1997) Wildlife conservation in urban greenways of the mid-southeastern United States. Urban Ecosystems 1: 103–116.Google Scholar
Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2012) Cities and Biodiversity Outlook. A Global Assessment of the Links between Action and Policy: Urbanization, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Services. Montreal, QC: Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity.Google Scholar
Shwartz, A., Muratet, A., Simon, L. & Julliard, R. (2013). Local and management variables outweigh landscape effects in enhancing the diversity of different taxa in a big metropolis. Biological Conservation 157: 285–292.Google Scholar
Sisk, T.D., Haddad, N.M. & Ehrlich, P.R. (1997) Bird assemblages in patchy woodlands: modeling the effects of edge and matrix habitat. Ecological Applications 7: 1170–1180.Google Scholar
Smith, J., Chapman, A. & Eggleton, P. (2006) Baseline biodiversity surveys of the soil macrofauna of London's green spaces. Urban Ecosystems 9: 337–349.Google Scholar
Soga, M., Kanno, N., Yamaura, Y. & Koike, S. (2013) Patch size determines the strength of edge effects on carabid beetle assemblages in urban remnant forests. Journal of Insect Conservation 17: 421–428.Google Scholar
Strauss, B. & Biedermann, R. (2006) Urban brownfields as temporary habitats: driving forces for the diversity of phytophagous insects. Ecography 29: 928–940.Google Scholar
Su, Z., Li, X., Zhou, W. & Ouyang, Z. (2015) Effect of landscape pattern on insect species density within urban green spaces in Beijing, China. PLoS One 10: e0119276.Google Scholar
Thomas, C.D., Baguette, M. & Lewis, O.T. (2000) Butterfly movement and conservation in patchy landscapes. In: Behaviour and Conservation. Conservation Biology Series 2, eds. Gosling, M.L. & Sutherland, W.J., pp. 85–104. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Triantis, K.A. & Bhagwat, S.A. (2011) Applied island biogeography. In: Conservation Biogeography, eds. Ladle, R.J. & Whittaker, R.J., pp. 190–223. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
United Nations (2014) World Urbanization Prospects. The 2014 revision [www document]. URL http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/ Google Scholar
Valtonen, A., Saarinen, K. & Jantunen, J. (2007) Intersection reservations as habitats for meadow butterflies and diurnal moths: guidelines for planning and management. Landscape and Urban Planning 79: 201–209.Google Scholar
Weller, B. & Ganzhorn, J.U. (2004) Carabid beetle community composition, body size, and fluctuating asymmetry along an urban–rural gradient. Basic and Applied Ecology 5: 193–201.Google Scholar
Whittaker, R.J., Field, R. & Partomihardjo, T. (2000) How to go extinct: lessons from the lost plants of Krakatau. Journal of Biogeography 27: 1049–1064.Google Scholar
Wilson, E.O. & Simberloff, D.S. (1968) Experimental zoogeography of islands: defaunation and monitoring techniques. Ecology 50: 267–278.Google Scholar
Wolf, J.M. & Gibbs, J.P. (2004) Silphids in urban forests: diversity and function. Urban Ecosystems 7: 371–384.Google Scholar
Yamaguchi, T. (2004) Influence of urbanization on ant distribution in parks of Tokyo and Chiba City, Japan – I. Analysis of ant species richness. Ecological Research 19: 209–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamaura, Y., Kawahara, T., Lida, S. & Ozaki, K. (2008) Relative importance of the area and shape of patches to the diversity of multiple taxa. Conservation Biology 22: 1513–1522.Google Scholar