Keller Adrienne B, Brandt Leslie A, Cavender-Bares Jeannine, Knight Joseph F, Hobbie Sarah E
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA.
College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan, USA.
Ecol Appl. 2024 Dec;34(8):e3034. doi: 10.1002/eap.3034. Epub 2024 Sep 22.
Urban tree canopy cover is often unequally distributed across cities such that more socially vulnerable neighborhoods often have lower tree canopy cover than less socially vulnerable neighborhoods. However, how the diversity and composition of the urban canopy affect the nature of social-ecological benefits (and burdens), including the urban forest's vulnerability to climate change, remains underexamined. Here, we synthesize tree inventories developed by multiple organizations and present a species-specific, geolocated database of more than 600,000 urban trees across the 7-county Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) metropolitan area in the Upper Midwest of the United States. We find that tree diversity across the MSP is variable yet dominated by a few species (e.g., Fraxinus pennsylvanica, Acer platanoides, and Gleditsia triacanthos), contributing to the vulnerability of the MSP urban forest to future climate change and disturbances. In contrast to tree canopy cover, tree diversity was not well predicted by socioeconomic or demographic factors. However, our analysis identified areas where both climate and social vulnerability are high. Our results add to a growing body of literature emphasizing the importance of considering how complex and interacting social and ecological factors drive urban forest diversity and composition when pursuing management objectives.
城市树冠覆盖在城市中分布往往不均，社会弱势群体较多的社区树冠覆盖率通常低于社会弱势群体较少的社区。然而，城市树冠的多样性和构成如何影响社会生态效益（和负担）的性质，包括城市森林对气候变化的脆弱性，仍未得到充分研究。在此，我们综合了多个组织编制的树木清单，并呈现了一个特定物种、地理定位的数据库，涵盖美国中西部上区明尼阿波利斯 - 圣保罗（MSP）大都市区7个县的60多万棵城市树木。我们发现，MSP地区的树木多样性参差不齐，但由少数几个物种主导（如宾夕法尼亚白蜡树、挪威槭和皂荚），这导致MSP城市森林对未来气候变化和干扰较为脆弱。与树冠覆盖率不同，社会经济或人口因素并不能很好地预测树木多样性。不过，我们的分析确定了气候和社会脆弱性都很高的区域。我们的研究结果为越来越多的文献增添了内容，强调在追求管理目标时，考虑复杂且相互作用的社会和生态因素如何驱动城市森林多样性和构成的重要性。
