Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T06:13:15.978Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Urbanisation and alien invasion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Kevin J. Gaston
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
Get access

Summary

Introduction

Urbanisation is a rapidly developing process of global change. The world's human population in 1900 was around 1.6 billion, of which 13% lived in cities (UN-HABITAT2003, 2006). Within 100 years the world population increased to 6.5 billion and the urban population increased to 50% (UN-HABITAT 2006). This increase will continue rapidly. In Europe and other highly industrialised regions the percentage of urban population is already much higher (>70%). This urban population growth is strongly connected with an increase in the size and intensity of urban land-use. As a consequence of land-use change, more and more plant and animal habitats have been lost. Urbanisation is a major driver of plant and animal extinction on a regional scale (Fuller & Gaston 2009). The species most affected have been those of wet and very pristine habitats, as well as those of extensive agricultural lands like meadow and pasture, all of which have become rarer in heavily used landscapes such as those of Germany (Klotz 1989).

The concentration of the human population has resulted in an increase in traffic and transport of food, raw materials etc., and growing needs for open space recreation activities such as gardening and walking. Additionally, landscaping and gardening, as well as vegetable and ornamental plant production, are concentrated in urbanised regions. Therefore we have two of the general prerequisites for species introductions into cities. First, there is the concentration of intentional introductions of plant and animal species.

Type
Chapter
Information
Urban Ecology , pp. 120 - 133
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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

Araújo, M. B. (2003). The coincidence of people and biodiversity in Europe. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 12, 5–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Botham, M. S., Rothery, P., Hulme, P. E.et al. (2009). Do urban areas act as foci for the spread of alien plant species? An assessment of temporal trends in the UK. Diversity and Distributions, 15, 338–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brunzel, S., Fischer, S. F., Schneider, J., Jetzkowitz, J. and Brandl, R. (2009). Neo- and archaeophytes respond more strongly than natives to socio-economic mobility and disturbance patterns along an urban–rural gradient. Journal of Biogeography, 36, 835–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ernst, W. H. O. (1998). Invasion, dispersal and ecology of the South African neophyte Senecio inaequidens in the Netherlands: from wool alien to railway and road alien. Acta Botanica Neerlandica, 47, 131–51.Google Scholar
Fuller, R. A. and Gaston, K. J. (2009). The scaling of green space coverage in European cities. Biology Letters, 5, 352–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fuller, R. A., Tratalos, J. and Gaston, K. J. (2009). How many birds are there in a city of half a million people?Diversity and Distributions, 15, 328–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelbard, J. L. and Belnap, J. (2003). Roads as conduits for exotic plant invasions in a semiarid landscape. Conservation Biology, 17, 420–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, O. L. (1989). Ecology of Urban Habitats. London: Chapman and Hall.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutte, P., Klotz, S., Lahr, C. and Trefflich, A. (1987). Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle – eine vergleichende pflanzengeographische Studie. Folia Geobotanica et Phytotaxonomica, 22, 241–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heger, T. and Böhmer, H. J. (2005). The invasion of Central Europe by Senecio inaequidens DC. – a complex biogeographical problem. Erdkunde, 59, 34–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hope, D., Gries, C., Zhu, W. X.et al. (2003). Socioeconomics drive urban plant diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 100, 8788–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Houlahan, J. E., Keddy, P. A., Makkay, K. and Findlay, C. S. (2006). The effects of adjacent land use on wetland species richness and community composition. Wetlands, 26, 79–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hulme, P. E., Bacher, S., Kenis, M.et al. (2008). Grasping at the routes of biological invasions: a framework for integrating pathways into policy. Journal of Applied Ecology, 45, 403–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klotz, S. (1989). Flora und Vegetation in der Stadt – ihre Spezifik und Indikatorfunktion. Bauforschung-Baupraxis, 244, 29–33.Google Scholar
Knapp, S., Kühn, I., Bakker, J. P.et al. (2009). How species traits and affinity to urban land use control large-scale species frequency. Diversity and Distributions, 15, 533–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knapp, S., Kühn, I., Mosbrugger, V. and Klotz, S. (2008a). Do protected areas in urban and rural landscapes differ in species diversity?Biodiversity and Conservation, 17, 1595–612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knapp, S., Kühn, I., Schweiger, O. and Klotz, S. (2008b). Challenging urban species diversity: contrasting phylogenetic patterns across plant functional groups in Germany. Ecology Letters, 11, 1054–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Knapp, S., Kühn, I., Wittig, R.et al. (2008c). Urbanization causes shifts in species' trait state frequencies. Preslia, 80, 375–88.Google Scholar
Kowarik, I. (2003). Biologische Invasionen. Neophyten und Neozoen in Mitteleuropa. Stuttgart: Ulmer.Google Scholar
Kühn, I. and Klotz, S. (2002). Floristischer Status und gebietsfremde Arten. In Klotz, S., Kühn, I. and Durka, W., eds. BIOLFLOR – Eine Datenbank zu biologisch-ökologischen Merkmalen der Gefäßpflanzen in Deutschland. Bonn: Bundesamt für Naturschutz, Schriftenreihe für Vegetationskunde Vol. 38, pp. 47–56.Google Scholar
Kühn, I. and Klotz, S. (2006). Urbanisation and homogenization – comparing the floras of urban and rural areas in Germany. Biological Conservation, 127, 292–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kühn, I., Brandl, R. and Klotz, S. (2004a). The flora of German cities is naturally species rich. Evolutionary Ecology Research, 6, 749–64.Google Scholar
Kühn, I., Durka, W. and Klotz, S. (2004b). BiolFlor – a new plant-trait database as a tool for plant invasion ecology. Diversity and Distributions, 10, 363–5.Google Scholar
Kunick, W. (1974). Veränderungen von Flora und Vegetation einer Großstadt, dargestellt am Beispiel von Berlin (West). Dissertation, Technische Universität Berlin.Google Scholar
Sorte, F. A., McKinney, M. L. and Pyšek, P. (2007). Compositional similarity among urban floras within and across continents: biogeographical consequences of human-mediated biotic interchange. Global Change Biology, 13, 913–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sorte, F. A., McKinney, M. L., Pyšek, P.et al. (2008). Distance decay of similarity among European urban floras: the impact of anthropogenic activities on beta diversity. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 17, 363–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambdon, P. W., Pyšek, P., Basnou, C.et al. (2008). Alien flora of Europe: species diversity, temporal trends, geographical patterns and research needs. Preslia, 80, 101–49.Google Scholar
Landsberg, H. (1981). The Urban Climate. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lockwood, J. L., Brooks, T. M. and McKinney, M. L. (2000). Taxonomic homogenization of the global avifauna. Animal Conservation, 3, 27–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lososová, Z., Chytrý, M., Kühn, I.et al. (2006). Patterns of plant traits in annual vegetation of man-made habitats in central Europe. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, 8, 69–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loss, S. R., Ruiz, M. O. and Brawn, J. D. (2009). Relationships between avian diversity, neighborhood age, income, and environmental characteristics of an urban landscape. Biological Conservation, 142, 2578–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinney, M. L. (2005). Species introduced from nearby sources have a more homogenizing effect than species from distant sources: evidence from plants and fishes in the USA. Diversity and Distributions, 11, 367–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinney, M. L. (2006). Urbanization as a major cause of biotic homogenization. Biological Conservation, 127, 247–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinney, M. L. and Lockwood, J. L. (1999). Biotic homogenization: a few winners replacing many losers in the next mass extinction. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 14, 450–3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Niggemann, M., Jetzkowitz, J., Brunzel, S., Wichmann, M. C. and Bialozyt, R. (2009). Distribution patterns of plants explained by human movement behaviour. Ecological Modelling, 220, 1339–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oke, T. R. (1982). The energetic basis of the urban heat island. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 108, 1–24.Google Scholar
Olden, J. D. and Poff, N. L. (2003). Toward a mechanistic understanding and prediction of biotic homogenization. American Naturalist, 162, 442–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parendes, L. A. and Jones, J. A. (2000). Role of light availability and dispersal in exotic plant invasion along roads and streams in the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Oregon. Conservation Biology, 14, 64–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pyšek, P. (1998). Alien and native species in Central European urban floras: a quantitative comparison. Journal of Biogeography, 25, 155–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pyšek, P., Lambdon, P. W., Arianoutsou, M.et al. (2009). Alien vascular plants of Europe. In DAISIE, , ed., The Handbook of Alien Species in Europe. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 43–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pyšek, P., Richardson, D. M., Rejmánek, M.et al. (2004). Alien plants in checklists and floras: towards better communication between taxonomists and ecologists. Taxon, 53, 131–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Qian, H. and Ricklefs, R. E. (2006). The role of exotic species in homogenizing the North American flora. Ecology Letters, 9, 1293–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Qian, H., McKinney, M. L. and Kühn, I. (2008). Effects of introduced species on floristic similarity: comparing two US states. Basic and Applied Ecology, 9, 617–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roy, D. B., Hill, M. O. and Rothery, P. (1999). Effects of urban land cover on the local species pool in Britain. Ecography, 22, 507–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, M. W., Thorne, J. H. and Viers, J. H. (2006). Biotic homogenization of the California flora in urban and urbanizing regions. Biological Conservation, 127, 282–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sukopp, H. (1998). Urban ecology: scientific and practical aspects. In Breuste, J., Feldmann, H. and Uhlmann, O., eds., Urban Ecology. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 3–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sullivan, J. J., Timmins, S. M. and Williams, P. A. (2005). Movement of exotic plants into coastal native forests from gardens in northern New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 29, 1–10.Google Scholar
,UN-HABITAT (2003). Population, Education and Development. The Concise Report. New York: United Nations.Google Scholar
,UN-HABITAT (2006). World Urbanization Prospects. The 2005 Revision. Executive Summary, Fact Sheets, Data Tables. New York: United Nations.Google Scholar
der Lippe, M. and Kowarik, I. (2007a). Crop seed spillage along roads: a factor of uncertainty in the containment of GMO. Ecography, 30, 483–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
der Lippe, M. and Kowarik, I. (2007b). Long-distance dispersal of plants by vehicles as a driver of plant invasions. Conservation Biology, 21, 986–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
der Lippe, M. and Kowarik, I. (2008). Do cities export biodiversity? Traffic as dispersal vector across urban–rural gradients. Diversity and Distributions, 14, 18–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wania, A., Kühn, I. and Klotz, S. (2006). Biodiversity patterns of plants in agricultural and urban landscapes in Central Germany – spatial gradients of species richness. Landscape and Urban Planning, 75, 97–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wichmann, M. C., Alexander, M. J., Soons, M. B.et al. (2009). Human-mediated dispersal of seeds over long distances. Proceedings of the Royal Society B – Biological Sciences, 276, 523–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilcox, D. A. (1989). Migration and control of purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria L.) along highway corridors. Environmental Management, 13, 365–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winter, M., Kühn, I., Sorte, F. A., et al. (2010). The role of non-native plants and vertebrates in defining patterns of compositional dissimilarity within and across continents. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 19, 332–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winter, M., Kühn, I., Nentwig, W. and Klotz, S. (2008). Spatial aspects of trait homogenization within the German flora. Journal of Biogeography, 35, 2289–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wittig, R. (2002). Siedlungsvegetation. Stuttgart: Ulmer.Google Scholar
Wittig, R., Diesing, D. and Godde, M. (1985). Urbanophob-Urbanoneutral-Urbanophil – behavior of species concerning the urban habitat. Flora, 177, 265–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wyatt, R. (1996). More on the southward spread of common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca L. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, 123, 68–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×