Diversity and structure in California’s urban forest: What over six million data points tell us about one of the world's largest urban forests

《Diversity and structure in California’s urban forest: What over six million data points tell us about one of the world's largest urban forests》

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作者: Natalie L.R. Love;Viet Nguyen;Camille Pawlak;Andrew Pineda;Jeff L. Reimer;Jennifer M. Yost;G. Andrew Fricker;Jonathan D. Ventura;Jacqueline M. Doremus;Taylor Crow;Matt K. Ritter

来源: URBAN FORESTRY & URBAN GREENING,Vol.74,Issue1,Article 127679

语言: 英文

关键字: Tree diversity;Diversity metric;Urban forestry;Municipal forest;Tree benefits;Urban ecosystem services

作者单位: Biological Sciences Department, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA;Urban Forest Ecosystems Institute, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA;Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA;West Coast Arborists (WCA), Anaheim, CA 92806, USA;Social Sciences Department, California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA;Department of Economics, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA;Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA;Biological Sciences Department, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA;Urban Forest Ecosystems Institute, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA;Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA;West Coast Arborists (WCA), Anaheim, CA 92806, USA;Social Sciences Department, California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA;Department of Economics, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA;Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA

摘要: Urban street trees provide many benefits to surrounding communities, but our ability to assess such benefits relies on the availability of high-quality urban tree data. While these data are numerous, they are not available in an easily accessible, centralized place. To fill this gap, we aggregated public and private data into a single, comprehensive inventory of urban trees in California called the California Urban Forest (CUF) Inventory. These data are offered to the public (aggregated to ZIP code) via an online data portal, which at the time of publication contained over 6.6 million urban tree records. In this study, we first describe the assembly and utility of the inventory. Then, we conduct the most comprehensive assessment of the diversity and structure of California’s urban forest to date at statewide, regional, and local spatial scales. These analyses demonstrate that California’s urban forests are highly diverse and among the most diverse urban forests in the world. We present a new and intuitive metric of species diversity, the top diversity or TD-50 index, which represents the cumulative number of species accounting for the top 50 % abundance of trees in an urban forest. We used species abundance data from 81 well-inventoried cities to demonstrate that the TD-50 index was a robust metric of diversity and a good predictor of comprehensive metrics like the Shannon Index. We also found that small-statured trees, such as crape myrtles (Lagerstroemia cv.) dominate California’s urban forests. This aggregated inventory of one of the world's largest urban forests provides the data necessary to assess the structure, diversity, and value of California’s urban forests at multiple spatial scales. The inventory’s presentation to the public and the information that can be gained from its analysis can be a model for urban forest management worldwide.

《Diversity and structure in California’s urban forest: What over six million data points tell us about one of the world&#39;s largest urban forests》

《Diversity and structure in California’s urban forest: What over six million data points tell us about one of the world's largest urban forests》