Concrete jungle to urban oasis: evaluating scale, vegetation cover, and aggregation of urban greenspaces on wildlife

Urban greenspaces are a haven for wildlife in densely populated cities.
Wildlife use greenspaces for resource acquisition, shelter, and travel
across urbanized landscapes. Greenspace metrics such as herbaceous or
woody landcover, size, patchiness, and human land use influence species
richness. Considering these metrics in urban greenspace design could
influence valuable resources for wildlife, therefore the goals of this
study were to: 1) determine wildlife communities in different greenspace
types 2) identify and quantify greenspace metrics to determine
relationships with wildlife at various spatial scales. To monitor
wildlife, twenty-six camera traps were set in eastern Los Angeles County,
California; greenspace metrics were gathered using 3m landcover supervised
classification and FRAGSTATS. Non-metric multidimensional scaling was used
to determine wildlife community composition and a generalized linear mixed
model was selected to determine influence of greenspace metrics on
richness at four scales (200m, 500m, 1km, and 2km). Urban dweller adapted
species like the Northern mockingbird, Virginia opossum, and desert
cottontail, were commonly found in suburban yards and urban open modified
greenspaces like a commercial plant nursery. Whereas species like the
band-tailed pigeon, gray fox, and black bear had increased presence in
natural greenspaces. Large scale greenspaces, 1km and 2km in size, with
high herbaceous cover, either as increasing aggregated patches or
increased patchiness, and moderate levels of woody cover, positively
influence species richness. At smaller scales, 200m and 500m, low and high
levels of herbaceous cover and high levels of woody cover, strongly and
positively influence richness. These results suggest fragmented
greenspaces with varying levels of herbaceous and woody cover contribute
to increasing wildlife richness in urban regions. From the perspective of
urban planning, consideration of  ecological scale is important
to ensure developing greenspaces can support wildlife and ecological
functions.