Author's personal copy Green corridors in urban landscapes affect the arthropod communities of domestic gardens

Alan Vergnes (1) , Isabelle Le Viol (1) , Philippe Clergeau (1)

1 CESCO - Centre d'Ecologie et des Sciences de la COnservation

a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t Ecological corridors are landscape elements that prevent the negative effects of fragmentation. However, their effectiveness has never been clearly validated in urban landscapes. We analysed the role of green corridors in an urban context by comparing metacommunities of arthro-pods in (i) woodlots considered as sources of species, (ii) woody corridors and domestic gardens that are (iii) connected (CG) or (iv) disconnected to corridors (DG) and taking into account the connectivity of the matrix. We trapped 3 taxa of arthropods – spiders, carabids and staphylinids – because they are sensitive to fragmentation but with different dispersal capabilities. We analysed their species richness, abundance and taxonomic and functional composition. For the 3 taxa, the taxonomic and functional compositions of communities in CG were closer to those of the corridor and the source than those of DG. Woodland species were associated with source, corridor and CG. A lower abundance in DG was revealed for staphylinids and spiders. Lower species richness in DG was observed for staphylinids. The differences between taxa could be explained by the dispersal capabilities of the species and by their various responses to landscape structures. For carabids, processes at a wider scale could be respon-sible for their rarity in sources and, consequently, in gardens. For spiders, the colonisation from other sources could explain the high species richness found in disconnected gardens. Our results suggest that the role of corridors is crucial for enhancing biodiversity in green spaces such as domestic gardens. Our results clarify the effectiveness of corridors in urban landscapes and have direct implications for the ecological management of cities.

Mots clés: Arthropods; Domestic garden; Carabids; Corridors; Fragmented landscape; Metacommunities; Spiders; Staphylinids; Urban ecology

Domaines: Biodiversité et Ecologie; Ingénierie de l'environnement

Alan Vergnes, Isabelle Le Viol, Philippe Clergeau. Author's personal copy Green corridors in urban landscapes affect the arthropod communities of domestic gardens. Biological Conservation, 2011, 1, pp.171-178. ⟨10.1016/j.biocon.2011.11.002⟩. ⟨hal-01086060⟩