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How to measure the urban‐wildland ecotone: redefining ‘peri‐urban’ areas
Author(s) -
MacGregorFors Ian
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
ecological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.628
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1440-1703
pISSN - 0912-3814
DOI - 10.1007/s11284-010-0717-z
Subject(s) - ecotone , species richness , geography , abundance (ecology) , ecology , urban ecosystem , measure (data warehouse) , urban ecology , urban area , urban planning , physical geography , urbanization , habitat , computer science , biology , database
The array of definitions regarding ‘peri‐urban’ areas do not allow the precise measurement of its boundaries in a city. In this study, I developed an easy‐to‐use method to calculate the area where urban and adjacent non‐urban systems intermingle. To validate that such areas were ecologically meaningful, I compared bird community species‐richness, abundance, and composition from ‘intra‐’ and ‘peri‐urban’ areas in a medium‐sized neotropical city. Results show that ‘peri‐urban’ areas represent an important ecological interaction area for birds, and differ greatly from ‘intra‐urban’ areas. The proposed method is robust and useful for a great variety of amoeboid‐growing cities.