Environmental complexity and changes of the dynamics of socioecological interactions in urban landscapes affect natural processes influencing species performance and their evolutionary dynamics. Urban settings have different selective pressures from those on wild habitats and it is not clear if different taxonomic groups will respond similarly to such conditions given the ability of some species to adapt to man-made habitats both phenotypically and genetically. In order to better understand the link between urban landscape context and emerging patterns from taxonomic groups inhabiting urban areas, it is crucial to expand spatial scale and to consider a suite of different functional traits into the analyses. This study evaluates if the urban context (of a site) influence the functional traits of multiple taxonomic assemblages in consistent ways. From a systematic literature review process of urban biodiversity studies, we invited authors how provided their datasets for contributing with this project. Datasets compiled are community level information collected at multiple sites across an urban landscape. Six focal taxonomic groups (amphibians, reptiles, bats, bees, carabids, and birds) and five life history trait groups were included in a fourth corner method (RQL), to analyze relationships between landscape variables and species traits.
Results/Conclusions
Preliminary results from RQL analyses suggested some patterns between taxa. Into the amphibians, anurans seems to be less sensitive than salamanders to urban land cover. In the case of bees, species inhabiting more urban context landscapes, exhibited primitive eusocial reproductive method instead of solitary one. Results for carabids suggested that more tree cover in urban sites is associated with more carnivore species, while more open grassyecosystems have more granivores. Not clear pattern emerged from reptiles and none significant effects emerged for bats. Since urban environments are made of complex combinations of environmental gradients, fourth corner approach offers an opportunity to look at trends across multiple taxonomic groups in a relatively straightforward way. Our study is contributing to better understand how much of the emergence of a detectable urban signature operating as a filter of certain species traits indicating patters, reflect the ecological processes operating into the taxonomic groups can be explained by urban context.