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We examined recent literature on the human health impacts of natural green infrastructure (NGI). NGI refers to green space that requires less maintenance than traditional formal urban green spaces such as city parks. Where declining cities have excess land and fewer funds for land maintenance, NGI is globally emerging as a cost-effective way to convert abandoned land into useful green space producing ecosystems services. Our goal was to determine if recent studies show that NGI provides human health benefits. Much previous work shows that urban green infrastructure in general has human health benefits but we ask the question whether this specific kind of green infrastructure also provides human health benefits. We found 29 studies reporting positive human health impacts from NGI. Most reported mental health benefits but wellbeing, crime reduction, obesity, and recreation were also reported. These studies also reveal the specific characteristics of NGI that contribute to the positive health impacts: forests, trees, wilderness, biodiversity, and tranquility. We also found an additional 13 studies of low-maintenance greening projects on urban vacant land that all report health benefits including crime reduction, mental health, and pro-social behavior. These 42 studies utilize a variety of different research designs and metrics. The recent literature indicates that NGI may be a low-cost way to convert abandoned land in declining urban areas into green space that provides health benefits to people who often lack access to green space. NGI provides benefits of mental health, wellbeing, and crime reduction that are comparable, if not better, than other, more costly urban green infrastructure.
Michael L. McKinney; Alexandra VerBerkmoes. Beneficial Health Outcomes of Natural Green Infrastructure in Cities. Current Landscape Ecology Reports 2020, 5, 35 -44.
AMA StyleMichael L. McKinney, Alexandra VerBerkmoes. Beneficial Health Outcomes of Natural Green Infrastructure in Cities. Current Landscape Ecology Reports. 2020; 5 (2):35-44.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMichael L. McKinney; Alexandra VerBerkmoes. 2020. "Beneficial Health Outcomes of Natural Green Infrastructure in Cities." Current Landscape Ecology Reports 5, no. 2: 35-44.
Urbanization has tremendous impacts on most native species. This is especially true in land snails, which are surprisingly understudied organisms. Due to their low mobility and dispersal potential, land snails are valuable indicators of ecosystem disturbance. For this study, land snails were collected in 54 city parks along an urban gradient to understand impacts of urbanization on snail communities. Sampled parks include small extensively landscaped downtown parks, neighborhood and community parks, district parks, and large nature parks, each with variable vegetation, soil characteristics, disturbance regimes, and human activities. Sampling recovered 12,153 individual snails, representing 20 families, 43 genera, and 95 species. Seven new Tennessee state and 87 new county occurrences were recorded. Five non-native and one extra-limital non-native species were found, four of which are new Tennessee state records. Results show that urbanization greatly alters land snail community structure. Nature and district parks have significantly greater species richness, species diversity and species evenness than community, neighborhood, and downtown parks. Degradation of parks, distance from the park to the commercial city center and percent of coarse woody debris accounted for most of the variation between park types. Non-metric multidimensional scaling and pairwise Jaccard indices indicate that downtown snail communities are more similar whereas snail communities in nature parks are more distinct. This suggests that urbanization promotes homogenization among land snail communities. We also show that this homogenization is thus far driven mainly by synanthropic, broadly adapted native species rather than non-native snail species.
Mackenzie N. Hodges; Michael L. McKinney. Urbanization impacts on land snail community composition. Urban Ecosystems 2018, 21, 721 -735.
AMA StyleMackenzie N. Hodges, Michael L. McKinney. Urbanization impacts on land snail community composition. Urban Ecosystems. 2018; 21 (4):721-735.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMackenzie N. Hodges; Michael L. McKinney. 2018. "Urbanization impacts on land snail community composition." Urban Ecosystems 21, no. 4: 721-735.
Many studies have described the effects of urbanization on species richness. These studies indicate that urbanization can increase or decrease species richness, depending on several variables. Some of these variables include: taxonomic group, spatial scale of analysis, and intensity of urbanization. Recent reviews of birds (the most-studied group) indicate that species richness decreases with increasing urbanization in most cases but produces no change or even increases richness in some studies. Here I expand beyond the bird studies by reviewing 105 studies on the effects of urbanization on the species richness of non-avian species: mammals, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates and plants. For all groups, species richness tends to be reduced in areas with extreme urbanization (i.e., central urban core areas). However, the effects of moderate levels of urbanization (i.e., suburban areas) vary significantly among groups. Most of the plant studies (about 65%) indicate increasing species richness with moderate urbanization whereas only a minority of invertebrate studies (about 30%) and a very small minority of non-avian vertebrate studies (about 12%) show increasing species richness. Possible explanations for these results are discussed, including the importance of nonnative species importation, spatial heterogeneity, intermediate disturbance and scale as major factors influencing species richness.
Michael L. McKinney. Effects of urbanization on species richness: A review of plants and animals. Urban Ecosystems 2008, 11, 161 -176.
AMA StyleMichael L. McKinney. Effects of urbanization on species richness: A review of plants and animals. Urban Ecosystems. 2008; 11 (2):161-176.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMichael L. McKinney. 2008. "Effects of urbanization on species richness: A review of plants and animals." Urban Ecosystems 11, no. 2: 161-176.
Non-native species diversity of plants and fishes in the contiguous 48 United States is analyzed to measure the influence of human population size, time of modern settlement, area and native species diversity. Besides exotic (from outside USA) plants, four types of non-native fishes are examined: established exotic fishes, reported exotic fishes, US fishes not native to a state, and native state fishes moved to new locations in a state. Human population size is most highly correlated with exotic plant diversity (r>70%) but is still significantly correlated with most types of non-native fish diversity. Time of modern settlement significantly increases non-native plant (but not most fish) diversity, even after the effects of current population size are removed. These patterns occur because most non-native plants are imported for landscaping, farming and other uses intimately linked to human settlements whereas, almost half of non-native fishes were released by state agencies for sport, often into large western states with relatively few humans. This also explains why state area is significantly correlated with all types of non-native fish diversity, but not non-native plant diversity where smaller eastern states have more people and more years of settlement which increase non-native plant diversity. Positive correlation of non-native plant diversity with native plant diversity is found, as humans tend to settle in states with high native species diversity. In contrast, negative correlation between non-native fish and native fish diversity is found. These findings may help predict non-native species diversity if past trends continue. They also imply that the most cost-effective way to slow non-native species impact may be to focus where human population is still small, because rate of establishment of non-native species decreases with increasing human population.
Michael L. McKinney. Effects of human population, area, and time on non-native plant and fish diversity in the United States. Biological Conservation 2001, 100, 243 -252.
AMA StyleMichael L. McKinney. Effects of human population, area, and time on non-native plant and fish diversity in the United States. Biological Conservation. 2001; 100 (2):243-252.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMichael L. McKinney. 2001. "Effects of human population, area, and time on non-native plant and fish diversity in the United States." Biological Conservation 100, no. 2: 243-252.
Human activities are not random in their negative and positive impacts on biotas. Emerging evidence shows that most species are declining as a result of human activities (‘losers') and are being replaced by a much smaller number of expanding species that thrive in human-altered environments (‘winners'). The result will be a more homogenized biosphere with lower diversity at regional and global scales. Recent data also indicate that the many losers and few winners tend to be non-randomly distributed among higher taxa and ecological groups, enhancing homogenization.
Michael L McKinney; Julie L Lockwood. Biotic homogenization: a few winners replacing many losers in the next mass extinction. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 1999, 14, 450 -453.
AMA StyleMichael L McKinney, Julie L Lockwood. Biotic homogenization: a few winners replacing many losers in the next mass extinction. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 1999; 14 (11):450-453.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMichael L McKinney; Julie L Lockwood. 1999. "Biotic homogenization: a few winners replacing many losers in the next mass extinction." Trends in Ecology & Evolution 14, no. 11: 450-453.
“It's not all heterochrony.” Raff (1996)“Heterochrony … explains everything.” McNamara (1997)Few evolutionary topics have generated more confusion and controversy than heterochrony. Commonly defined as “evolution via change in rate or timing of development,” heterchrony has historically become associated with genocidal ideologies, simple-minded theories of evolution, and a bloated, baroque jargon describing patterns produced by largely unknown mechanisms. With a track record like that, perhaps the most surprising aspect of heterochrony is its continued, even rapid, growth as an area of productive scientific inquiry. For example, the number of papers devoted to heterochronic topics continues to increase in many evolutionary journals and books (reviews in Reilly et al. 1997; Klingenberg 1998), including those devoted to human development (Bogin 1997) and evolution (Vrba 1998; McKinney 1998; Parker and McKinney 1999).
Michael L. McKinney. Heterochrony: beyond words. Paleobiology 1999, 25, 149 -153.
AMA StyleMichael L. McKinney. Heterochrony: beyond words. Paleobiology. 1999; 25 (2):149-153.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMichael L. McKinney. 1999. "Heterochrony: beyond words." Paleobiology 25, no. 2: 149-153.