Lagucki Edward, Burdine Justin D, McCluney Kevin E
Department of Biological Sciences, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA.
PeerJ. 2017 Sep 4;5:e3620. doi: 10.7717/peerj.3620. eCollection 2017.
Urbanization transforms undeveloped landscapes into built environments, causing changes in communities and ecological processes. Flying arthropods play important roles in these processes as pollinators, decomposers, and predators, and can be important in structuring food webs. The goal of this study was to identify associations between urbanization and the composition of communities of flying (and floating) arthropods within gardens and parks in a medium-sized mesic city. We predicted that flying arthropod abundance and diversity would respond strongly to percent impervious surface and distance to city center, measurements of urbanization. Flying arthropods were sampled from 30 gardens and parks along an urbanization gradient in Toledo, Ohio, during July and August 2016, using elevated pan traps. A variety of potential predictor variables were also recorded at each site. We collected a total of 2,369 individuals representing nine orders. We found that flying arthropod community composition was associated with percent impervious surface and canopy cover. Overall flying arthropod abundance was negatively associated with percent impervious surface and positively associated with distance to city center. Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants), Lepidoptera (moths, butterflies), and Araneae (spiders) were positively associated with distance to city center. Hemiptera (true bugs), Diptera (flies), and Araneae were negatively associated with percent impervious surface. Both distance to city center and percent impervious surface are metrics of urbanization, and this study shows how these factors influence flying arthropod communities in urban gardens and city parks, including significant reductions in taxa that contain pollinators and predators important to urban agriculture and forestry. A variety of environmental factors also showed significant associations with responses (e.g. canopy cover and soil moisture), suggesting these factors may underlie or modulate the urbanization effects. More research is needed to determine mechanisms of change.
城市化将未开发的景观转变为建筑环境，导致群落和生态过程发生变化。飞行节肢动物作为传粉者、分解者和捕食者在这些过程中发挥着重要作用，并且在构建食物网方面可能很重要。本研究的目的是确定在一个中等规模的湿润城市中，城市化与花园和公园内飞行（及漂浮）节肢动物群落组成之间的关联。我们预测，飞行节肢动物的丰度和多样性会对不透水表面百分比和距市中心的距离（城市化的度量指标）做出强烈反应。2016年7月和8月期间，在俄亥俄州托莱多市沿着城市化梯度从30个花园和公园中使用高架诱虫盘对飞行节肢动物进行采样。每个地点还记录了各种潜在的预测变量。我们总共收集了代表9个目的2369个个体。我们发现飞行节肢动物群落组成与不透水表面百分比和树冠覆盖率有关。总体而言，飞行节肢动物的丰度与不透水表面百分比呈负相关，与距市中心的距离呈正相关。膜翅目（蜜蜂、黄蜂、蚂蚁）、鳞翅目（蛾、蝴蝶）和蜘蛛目（蜘蛛）与距市中心的距离呈正相关。半翅目（椿象）、双翅目（苍蝇）和蜘蛛目与不透水表面百分比呈负相关。距市中心的距离和不透水表面百分比都是城市化的指标，本研究展示了这些因素如何影响城市花园和城市公园中的飞行节肢动物群落，包括对城市农业和林业重要的传粉者和捕食者所在类群的显著减少。各种环境因素也显示出与响应有显著关联（例如树冠覆盖率和土壤湿度），表明这些因素可能是城市化效应的基础或调节因素。需要更多研究来确定变化机制。
