1. Urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas support similar levels of soil ecosystem servicesDavid J. Eldridge, Haiying Cui, Jingyi Ding, Miguel Berdugo, Tadeo Sáez-Sandino, Jorge Duran, Juan J. Gaitan, José L. Blanco-Pastor, Alexandra Rodríguez, César Plaza, Tine Grebenc, Tina Unuk Nahberger, 2024, original scientific article Abstract: Greenspaces are important for sustaining healthy urban environments and their human populations. Yet their capacity to support multiple ecosystem services simultaneously (multiservices) compared with nearby natural ecosystems remains virtually unknown. We conducted a global field survey in 56 urban areas to investigate the influence of urban greenspaces on 23 soil and plant attributes and compared them with nearby natural environments. We show that, in general, urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas support similar levels of soil multiservices, with only six of 23 attributes (available phosphorus, water holding capacity, water respiration, plant cover, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), and arachnid richness) significantly greater in greenspaces, and one (available ammonium) greater in natural areas. Further analyses showed that, although natural areas and urban greenspaces delivered a similar number of services at low (>25% threshold) and moderate (>50%) levels of functioning, natural systems supported significantly more functions at high (>75%) levels of functioning. Management practices (mowing) played an important role in explaining urban ecosystem services, but there were no effects of fertilisation or irrigation. Some services declined with increasing site size, for both greenspaces and natural areas. Our work highlights the fact that urban greenspaces are more similar to natural environments than previously reported and underscores the importance of managing urban greenspaces not only for their social and recreational values, but for supporting multiple ecosystem services on which soils and human well-being depends.
Keywords: soil, ecosystem services, urban forests
Published in DiRROS: 17.04.2024; Views: 30; Downloads: 12
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2. Soil contamination in nearby natural areas mirrors that in urban greenspaces worldwideYu-Rong Liu, Marcel G. A. van der Heijden, Judith Riedo, Carlos Sanz-Lazaro, David J. Eldridge, Felipe Bastida, Eduardo Moreno-Jiménez, Xin-Quan Zhou, Hang-Wei Hu, Ji-Zheng He, Tine Grebenc, Tina Unuk Nahberger, 2023, original scientific article Abstract: Soil contamination is one of the main threats to ecosystem health and sustainability. Yet little is known about the extent to which soil contaminants differ between urban greenspaces and natural ecosystems. Here we show that urban greenspaces and adjacent natural areas (i.e., natural/semi-natural ecosystems) shared similar levels of multiple soil contaminants (metal(loid)s, pesticides, microplastics, and antibiotic resistance genes) across the globe. We reveal that human influence explained many forms of soil contamination worldwide. Socio-economic factors were integral to explaining the occurrence of soil contaminants worldwide. We further show that increased levels of multiple soil contaminants were linked with changes in microbial traits including genes associated with environmental stress resistance, nutrient cycling, and pathogenesis. Taken together, our work demonstrates that human-driven soil contamination in nearby natural areas mirrors that in urban greenspaces globally, and highlights that soil contaminants have the potential to cause dire consequences for ecosystem sustainability and human wellbeing.
Keywords: soil contamination, urban greenspaces
Published in DiRROS: 28.03.2023; Views: 586; Downloads: 234
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3. Global homogenization of the structure and function in the soil microbiome of urban greenspacesManuel Delgado-Baquerizo, David J. Eldridge, Yu-Rong Liu, Blessing Sokoya, Jun-Tao Wang, Hang-Wei Hu, Ji-Zheng He, Felipe Bastida, José L. Moreno, Adebola R. Bamigboye, Tine Grebenc, Tina Unuk Nahberger, 2021, original scientific article Abstract: The structure and function of the soil microbiome of urban greenspaces remain largely undetermined. We conducted a global field survey in urban greenspaces and neighboring natural ecosystems across 56 cities from six continents, and found that urban soils are important hotspots for soil bacterial, protist and functional gene diversity, but support highly homogenized microbial communities worldwide. Urban greenspaces had a greater proportion of fast-growing bacteria, algae, amoebae, and fungal pathogens, but a lower proportion of ectomycorrhizal fungi than natural ecosystems. These urban ecosystems also showed higher proportions of genes associated with human pathogens, greenhouse gas emissions, faster nutrient cycling, and more intense abiotic stress than natural environments. City affluence, management practices, and climate were fundamental drivers of urban soil communities. Our work paves the way toward a more comprehensive global-scale perspective on urban greenspaces, which is integral to managing the health of these ecosystems and the well-being of human populations.
Keywords: soil biodiversity, structural diversity, functional diversity, urban soils
Published in DiRROS: 15.07.2021; Views: 972; Downloads: 824
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