科研之友
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摘要
The biodiversity of agricultural landscapes has been noticeably affected by rapid urbanization. Although many studies have examined species diversity per unit area (alpha diversity), knowledge about the patterns of species turnover (beta diversity) in urban areas remains limited. Furthermore, most beta diversity studies have focused on spatial heterogeneity; however, losses of temporal heterogeneity resulting from urbanization remain limited. In this study, we examined how urbanization is associated with decreases in the seasonal heterogeneity of species composition, which could be used as an indicator of the loss of seasonality by ecologists and policy makers aiming to conserve biodiversity. We investigated (1) changes in species richness based on seasonal averages (alpha diversity) and (2) the seasonal turnover of species composition (beta diversity) for flowering plants and butterflies along a rural-urban gradient in semi-natural grasslands. The response variables were alpha and beta diversity for flowering plants and butterflies, and the explanatory variables were urban areas within a 1-km radius of the center of each site. Increasing urban area caused both the seasonal alpha and beta diversity of flowering plants and butterflies to decline. These results supported the homogenization hypothesis for the seasonality of plants and butterflies in semi-natural grasslands of dominant urban areas in East Asia. Future studies should focus on investigating how urbanization is causing both declines in seasonality and changes in the spatial heterogeneity of species composition and associated biodiversity loss. Ecologists and policy makers should focus on developing strategies to halt the loss of temporal biological heterogeneity to maintain biodiversity.
- 出版日期2018-6
