不同类型城市快速扩张区域人工景观对自然景观的生态安全胁迫效应比较

城镇化进程中的建成区扩张会对区域自然生态安全格局造成胁迫效应.本文选取北京通州、河北正定、天津塘沽及福建厦门4个内陆和沿海城市为研究区,通过景观生态学原理构建区域景观胁迫分析指标,对比分析4个城市快速扩张区域在快速城镇化过程中表现出的景观格局特征,研究不同区域及城镇化背景下人工景观对耕地、绿/林地、水体和未利用地等自然景观生态安全格局的胁迫作用差异.结果表明: 2015年,通州、正定、塘沽和厦门4个城市扩张区的景观侵蚀指数分别为1.039、0.996、1.239和0.945,自然景观都表现出显著的被侵蚀程度;但不同城市区域的各类自然景观类型受威胁的程度不同,通州、正定和塘沽以未利用地和水域为主,厦门则以耕地和水域为主,4个城市水域威胁指数均超过0.743;内陆城市的水域和未利用地景观分离度指数均大于沿海城市,在空间上表现为沿海城市水体分布较内陆城市更聚集;相对于其他自然景观,未利用地和水域是受人工景观胁迫最大的两种自然景观.     

Archipelagos of the Anthropocene: rapid and extensive differentiation of native terrestrial vertebrates in a single metropolis

Some of the best evidence for rapid evolutionary change comes from studies of archipelagos and oceanic islands. City parks are analogous systems as they create geographically isolated green spaces that differ in size, structure and complexity. Very little, however, is known about whether city parks within a single urban centre drive selection and result in the diversification of native species. Here, we provide evidence for the rapid genetic and morphological differentiation of a native lizard (Intellagama lesueurii) at four geographically close yet unconnected parks within one city. Year of establishment of each city park varied from 1855 (oldest) to 2001 (youngest) equating to a generation time range of 32 to three generations. Genetic divergence among city park populations was large despite the small pairwise geographic distances (<5 km) and found to be two to three times higher for microsatellites and three to 33 times higher for mtDNA relative to nonurban populations. Patterns of morphological differentiation were also found to be most extensive among the four city park populations. In contrast to nonurban populations, city park populations showed significant differentiation in relative body size, relative head and limb morphology and relative forelimb and hindlimb length. Crucially, we show that these patterns of differentiation are unlikely to have been caused by founder events and/or drift alone. Our results suggest that city park ‘archipelagos’ could represent theatres for rapid evolution that may, in time, favour adaptive diversification.     

Effect of urbanization on centipede (Chilopoda) diversity in the Wielkopolska-Kujawy Lowlands of western Poland

Over fifty years of research data from various sources were compiled and analyzed in order to determine the effect of urbanization on centipede diversity in the Wielkopolska-Kujawy Lowlands of western Poland. Urbanization has had a significant effect on species composition and community structures. However, it has not reduced overall species richness and diversity in the centipede fauna. The centipede fauna from built-up areas was found to be rich and varied. The habitats with the highest levels of species richness were the city of Poznań and the beech forests in the surrounding region.     

环境变化对中国野生蜜蜂多样性的影响

蜜蜂尤其是野生蜜蜂对维持生态系统功能、保证粮食安全等方面具有重要的作用。近年来, 野生蜜蜂的栖息地由于天然林减少, 而现营造的又多为纯林, 以及大面积种植单一经济林而遭到了严重破坏和片断化。已有研究表明纯林、油茶(Camellia oleifera)和橡胶树(Hevea brasiliensis)经济林中的野生蜜蜂多样性较低。现代农业中新烟碱类杀虫剂、除草剂的大规模使用, 会对蜜蜂个体发育和行为产生不利影响。城市化进程潜在影响了蜜蜂的群落, 如郊区的蜜蜂平均物种丰富度要明显高于中心商业区; 废水、废气和粉尘对蜜蜂的觅食、生长发育等都具有不利影响; CO₂等温室气体导致的气候变暖影响了传粉蜜蜂与植物之间的互利共生关系, 造成时间或功能上的不匹配。综上所述, 我国的环境变化可能已导致中国野生传粉蜜蜂多样性的下降和种群的衰退。我国虽是传粉蜜蜂种质资源大国, 但缺乏种类和分布本底以及长期而有效的监测数据, 缺乏对蜜蜂多样性和种群下降机制的研究。因此亟待开展传粉蜜蜂调查、实施长期监测项目, 为之建立研究网络。并通过积累丰富的相关数据, 开展风险预测和评估, 用于管理和缓解传粉蜜蜂下降所带来的经济及非经济影响。     

Happy to breed in the city? Urban food resources limit reproductive output in Western Jackdaws

Urban areas expand worldwide, transforming landscapes and creating new challenging habitats. Some bird species, mainly omnivorous feeding on human waste and cavity nesters, commonly breed in these habitats and are, therefore, regarded as urban‐adapted. Although urban areas may provide new nesting sites and abundant human waste, the low breeding success found in some of these species suggests that the poor protein content in human waste might limit breeding parameters. We investigated whether the breeding success of a cavity nester and omnivorous species commonly breeding in urban areas, the Western Jackdaw (Corvus monedula), depended on the availability of good‐quality non‐urban food. We approached the objective by combining a literature review and experiments in the field. With the literature review, we compared jackdaw populations in different habitats across Europe and found that clutch size and number of fledglings per pair decreased with distance to non‐urban foraging grounds, even after controlling for the effect of colony size, latitude, and climate. In two experiments, we tested whether the breeding success of urban pairs could be increased by supplementing high‐quality food, first only during egg formation and second also until chick fledging. Food supplementation during egg formation led to larger eggs and higher hatching success than in urban control nests, but this did not result in higher chick survival. However, when food supplementation was prolonged until fledging in the second experiment, we observed a significant increase of nestling survival. These findings highlight that research and management actions should not only focus on species displaced by urbanization, but also on “urban‐adapted” species, as they might be suffering from a mismatch between availability of nesting sites in buildings and adequate non‐urban food resources. In these cases, nest sites should be provided in or close to adequate food resources.     

The association between artificial light at night and prostate cancer in Gwangju City and South Jeolla Province of South Korea

Exposure to artificial light at night (ALAN) has been reported to be associated with various pathological changes including sleep deprivation, circadian rhythm disruption, and melatonin suppression with increase in various cancers such as breast or prostate cancers. In this study, we sought to elucidate the association between ALAN and prostate cancer in 27 districts within Gwangju City and urban and rural areas from South Jeolla Province in South Korea. We analyzed the correlation between ALAN and the incidence of a range of cancers by Poisson regression analysis, after adjustment for confounding risk factors, such as smoking, drinking, obesity, stress, air pollution (particulate matter <10 μm in diameter), urbanization (proportion of urbanized area), and the cancer screening rate. Interestingly, the incidence of prostate cancer was significantly associated with ALAN (risk ratio = 1.02, p = 0.0369) and urbanization (risk ratio = 1.06, p = 0.0055). In particular, comparing the prostate cancer incidence at 25% and 75% level of ALAN, the risk ratio was 1.726 (12.6 over 7.3, respectively). No significant association was observed between ALAN and other cancers, including stomach, esophageal, liver, pancreatic, laryngeal, lung and tracheal, bladder, and brain and central nervous system cancers, as well as lymphoma and multiple myeloma. In conclusion, this study shows that a high incidence of prostate cancer may be independently associated with light pollution and urbanization, which represent significant factors in the rapid process of industrialization of South Korea.     

A decadal review of urban ornithology and a prospectus for the future

The study of urban birds has increased exponentially in the last century. A prior review of the scientific literature up to the year 2000 found 100 research articles on urban birds, but in the past decade alone, over 1000 have been published. Here I review the studies from 2006–2015 to characterize their approach, location, general findings and recent obsessions, with an eye toward suggesting important future directions. Urban ornithology remains centred in the northern hemisphere, although there is a rapid increase in studies from southern, tropical and biodiverse settings. Studies in the north have changed from documentation of the composition of urban avifaunas to include many studies of the demographic response to aspects of urban environments. Studies of pattern remain most common in Latin America, Asia, Africa, New Zealand and the Middle East. Across the world, ornithologists are revealing the rapid evolution of behavioural and morphological adaptations by birds to the urban environment, much of which is due to phenotypic plasticity. The relationship of humans to nature generally and birds specifically has been increasingly studied as a driver of avifaunal change as well as a factor affecting human ethics. Urban ornithology remains rarely experimental, but it has matured to the point of supporting synthetic reviews and meta‐analyses that quantify the loss of avian diversity from city centres, characterize successful urban birds, discuss the role of amount and arrangement of vegetation on bird life, and explore the complex relationships between the subsidies and hazards of urban life and the survival and reproduction of birds. Yet much remains to be learned, including how some species thrive in cities with abundant predators; how city form and location affect the peak in avian richness that occurs typically at intermediate levels of urbanization; the significance of functional biotic homogenization; and the ways in which engaging citizens in urban bird life informs their broader environmental land ethic.     

Urbanization and biological invasion shape animal personalities

Novel selective pressures derived from human activities challenge the persistence of animal populations worldwide. Behavior is expected to be a major factor driving animals’ responses to global change because it largely determines how animals interact with the environment. However, the role of individual variation in behavior to facilitate the persistence of animals in changing environments remains poorly understood. Here, we adopted an animal personality approach to investigate whether different behavioral traits allow animals to deal with two major components of global change: urbanization and biological invasions. By studying six populations of Anolis sagrei lizards, we found for the first time that anoles vary consistently in their behavior across different times and contexts. Importantly, these animal personalities were consistent in the wild and in captivity. We investigated whether behavioral traits are pulled in different directions by different components of global change. On the one hand, we found that lizards from urban areas differ from nearby forest lizards in that they were more tolerant of humans, less aggressive, bolder after a simulated predator attack, and they spent more time exploring new environments. Several of these risk‐taking behaviors constituted a behavioral syndrome that significantly differed between urban and forest populations. On the other hand, the behavior of urban A. sagrei coexisting with the invasive predatory lizard Leiocephalus carinatus was associated with dramatic changes in their foraging niche. Overall, we provide evidence that differences in animal personalities facilitate the persistence of animals under novel selective regimes by producing adaptive behaviors relevant to their ecology such as predator avoidance. Our results suggest that natural selection can favor certain behaviors over others when animals are confronted with different ecological challenges posed by global change. Therefore, we underscore the need to incorporate behavioral ecology into the study of how animals adaptively respond to human‐induced environmental changes.