Improving the biodiversity in urban green spaces: A nature based approach

Abstract Urban green spaces have the reputation of limited potential to support biodiversity and public places located in urbanized regions normally sustain low levels of biodiversity. But there is the potential to improve such characteristics using restoration techniques that are easily implemented and cost-effective. In this study we implemented a set of nature-based interventions aiming to boost the local biodiversity of three urban parks in Sorocaba, SP, Brazil. Our interventions were designed to induce local ecological succession. In each park, we prepared nine sampling units (SU) by removing grass in a circle of 1 m diameter each. During the period of the study, three Sus in each park were kept uncovered (control treatment), three received -forest litter collected in an adjacent, well-conserved forest fragment (transposition treatment), and in the other three SUs, we installed a perch (perch treatment). For one year following establishment of the treatment, we monitored each SU biweekly and recorded the number and identity of seedlings that germinated in the circles. We recorded fluctuations in the number of seedlings in all experimental treatments of the three parks, indicating the variable rate of survivorship among species. We recorded a total of 30 different genera, most of which were herbaceous plants of species native to the region. In terms of the category of seed dispersion syndrome, most seedlings were from species dispersed by abiochoric vectors. Asteraceae was the most common botanical family. On one hand, if the experimental techniques we tested did not achieve the expected success in terms of the number of species of shrubs and trees, on the other hand, such interventions were not harmful in that they did not result in a predominance of exotic species. We conclude that this kind of approach has the potential to be successfully implemented in urban green spaces due to the simplicity of elaboration and implementation, respect of the natural structure and functioning (it is a nature-based alternative), and with an appropriate cost-benefit.