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Urban shade as a cryptic habitat: fern distribution in building gaps in Sapporo, northern Japan

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Abstract

Biodiversity conservation and restoration in cities is a global challenge for the 21st century. Unlike other common ecosystems, urban landscapes are predominantly covered by gray, artificial structures (e.g., buildings and roads), and remaining green spaces are scarce. Therefore, to conserve biodiversity in urban areas, understanding the potential conservation value of artificial structures is vital. Here, we examined factors influencing the distribution of ferns in building gaps, one of the more common artificial structures, in urban Sapporo, northern Japan. We observed 29 fern species, which corresponds to 30 % of all fern species previously recorded in Sapporo. The four dominant species were Equisetum arvense, Matteuccia struthiopteris, Dryopteris crassirhizoma, and Athyrium yokoscense. Statistical analyses showed that their distribution patterns in building gaps were associated with both local- and landscape-scale environmental factors. Although ground cover type and distance from continuous forests were the most important determinants, other factors such as the amount of solar radiation, habitat age (years after building development), and urban district type also affected fern distribution. These results suggest that building gaps act as an important habitat for ferns in highly urbanized landscapes. Policy makers and city planners should therefore not overlook these cryptic habitats. Clarifying the ecological functions of artificial structures will both further our understanding of novel ecosystems and develop a new framework for conserving and restoring biodiversity in human-modified landscapes.

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Acknowledgments

We are extremely grateful to the householders and landowners in Sapporo city who made their building gaps available. Thanks to M. Saitoh and Y. Shida for fern identification and K. Murakami for his helpful comments and discussion. We also thank J.T. Lundholm and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant No. 23248021 and No. 243222.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, 9 Kita, 9 Nishi, Kita-ku, , Sapporo, 060-8589, Japan

    Kazumitsu Kajihara, Yuichi Yamaura, Masashi Soga, Yasuto Furukawa, Junko Morimoto & Futoshi Nakamura

  2. Department of Forest Vegetation, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8687, Japan

    Yuichi Yamaura

Authors
  1. Kazumitsu Kajihara
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  2. Yuichi Yamaura
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  3. Masashi Soga
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  4. Yasuto Furukawa
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  5. Junko Morimoto
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  6. Futoshi Nakamura
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kazumitsu Kajihara.

Electronic supplementary material

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ESM 1

A list of 29 fern species observed in this study. (DOC 68 kb)

ESM 2

Pearson’s correlations for environmental variables (ground cover types, habitat age, district types, amount of solar radiation, and distance from continuous forest). (DOC 31 kb)

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Kajihara, K., Yamaura, Y., Soga, M. et al. Urban shade as a cryptic habitat: fern distribution in building gaps in Sapporo, northern Japan. Urban Ecosyst 19, 523–534 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-015-0499-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-015-0499-8

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