Characteristics of the Urban Flora and Fauna

Abstract

This chapter and the next two examine how ecological relationships in urban areas differ from those in the surrounding countryside. Most accounts highlight the urban climate, including air pollution, and the soil as aspects which particularly distinguish cities. These, two of the classic trio, climatic, edaphic and biotic factors are treated later, as in my experience they are less significant than certain other forces at work. If the founding fathers of ecology had studied cities rather than the most natural areas available to them they would have given greater prominence to anthropogenic factors. The full extent of man’s involvement in determining the present pattern of vegetation in seminatural woodland, grassland and moorland is only now emerging (Rackham, 1986) so it is not surprising that in urban ecosystems it is all- pervading. The shortage of detailed ecological studies carried out in highly urbanized areas means that only incomplete evidence and scattered examples are available to illustrate anthropogenic influences at work. This lack is particularly severe with regard to the fauna. Ensuing chapters provide detail; this one identifies some unifying characteristics of urban ecosystems.