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
University of Birmingham, UK.
Sci Total Environ. 2006 May 1;360(1-3):196-204. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2005.08.035. Epub 2005 Nov 16.
We examined the biodiversity of urban habitats in Birmingham (England) using a combination of field surveys of plants and carabid beetles, genetic studies of four species of butterflies, modelling the anthropochorous nature of the floral communities and spatially explicit modelling of selected mammal species. The aim of the project was to: (i) understand the ecological characteristics of the biota of cities model, (ii) examine the effects of habitat fragment size and connectivity upon the ecological diversity and individual species distributions, (iii) predict biodiversity in cities, and (iv) analyse the extent to which the flora and fauna utilise the 'urban greenways' both as wildlife corridors and as habitats in their own right. The results suggest that cities provide habitats for rich and diverse range of plants and animals, which occur sometimes in unlikely recombinant communities. The studies on carabids and butterflies illustrated the relative importance of habitat quality on individual sites as opposed to site location within the conurbation. This suggests that dispersal for most of our urban species is not a limiting factor in population persistence, although elements of the woodland carabid fauna did appear to have some geographical structuring. Theoretical models suggested that dormice and water voles may depend on linear habitats for dispersal. The models also indicated that other groups, such as small and medium sized mammals, may use corridors, although field-based research did not provide any evidence to suggest that plants or invertebrates use urban greenways for dispersal. This finding indicates the importance of identifying a target species or group of species for urban greenways intended as dispersal routeways rather than as habitat in their own right. Their importance for most groups is rather that greenways provide a chain of different habitats permeating the urban environment. We suggest that planners can have a positive impact on urban biodiversity by slowing the pace of redevelopment and by not hurrying to tidy up and redevelop brownfield sites.
我们通过对植物和步甲进行实地调查、对四种蝴蝶进行遗传学研究、模拟花卉群落的人为传播特性以及对选定哺乳动物物种进行空间明确建模，研究了英国伯明翰市城市栖息地的生物多样性。该项目的目的是：（i）了解城市生物群系的生态特征模型；（ii）研究栖息地碎片大小和连通性对生态多样性和单个物种分布的影响；（iii）预测城市中的生物多样性；（iv）分析动植物将“城市绿色通道”既用作野生动物走廊又用作自身栖息地的程度。结果表明，城市为丰富多样的动植物提供了栖息地，这些动植物有时出现在不太可能的重组群落中。对步甲和蝴蝶的研究表明，栖息地质量相对于城市区域内的地点位置对单个地点更为重要。这表明，对于我们大多数城市物种来说，扩散并不是种群持续存在的限制因素，尽管林地步甲动物群的某些元素似乎确实存在一些地理结构。理论模型表明，睡鼠和水田鼠可能依赖线性栖息地进行扩散。模型还表明，其他群体，如中小型哺乳动物，可能会使用走廊，尽管实地研究没有提供任何证据表明植物或无脊椎动物利用城市绿色通道进行扩散。这一发现表明，确定作为扩散途径而非自身栖息地的城市绿色通道的目标物种或物种群非常重要。绿色通道对大多数群体的重要性在于，它们提供了一系列贯穿城市环境的不同栖息地。我们建议规划者可以通过减缓再开发速度以及不急于清理和重新开发棕地来对城市生物多样性产生积极影响。
