Scaling-Up the Management and Conservation of Urban Biodiversity

Urban landscapes constitute a complex mosaic of vegetation or green spaces that serve as habitat patches. These relatively small, fragmented, and often isolated habitat patches within the urban matrix support the persistence of many species. Yet the quality, composition, and size of habitat patches varies tremendously, depending on a myriad of social and ecological factors. In this chapter, we focus on how these factors, which operate at multiple spatial and temporal scales, influence urban biodiversity patterns and the composition and configuration of habitat patches. We use residential yards as a focal point given that their spatial coverage and connection throughout the urban matrix represents a significant opportunity for biodiversity conservation. We highlight how scaling informs urban planning and how a holistic multi-scale approach to urban biodiversity management, policy, and planning can address potential scale mismatches. We conclude that future studies include multiple scales, cities, and taxon within an interdisciplinary framework. This approach can increase our understanding of how human decisions interact with environmental and spatial heterogeneity at multiple scales and how these decisions scale up and shape urban biodiversity.