Skip to main content
Entomology 2021 Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Presentation Icons
In-Person
In-Person
Livestream
Livestream
On-Demand
On-Demand
Student Competition
Student Competition
Video Chat
Video Chat
Ticketed Event
Ticketed Event
Poster Icons
Student Competition
Student Competition
In-Person
In-Person
Poster
Poster
On-Demand
On-Demand
Video Q&A ViewAttendees 2

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

Section Symposium

Transforming Agricultural Landscapes: Current Perspectives on How Intensification Impacts Arthropods and Pathways Toward a Sustainable Future On-Demand Presentations

Rarity begets rarity: Social and environmental drivers of rare organisms in cities

On-Demand
On-Demand
Urbanization can have detrimental effects on biodiversity, but biodiversity measures such as species richness and abundance may not fully capture the response of biodiversity to global change. Cities in particular are thought to host homogenous species assemblages composed of both abundant, generalist species and introduced species with similar ecological functions. Therefore, rare species that provide a wide range of less common ecosystem functions have particularly high conservation potential in cities. Urban systems can be managed to include more rare species; however, we know little about what species are actually rare in urban environments and what drives increased numbers of rare species. Here, we assessed how social, biophysical garden factors and the presence of other rare taxa impact the number of rare species and cultivars of plants and two key taxa for pest-control and pollination in urban gardens, birds and bees. Our results highlight the importance of both garden and gardener characteristics in mediating plant, bird, and bee rarity. Fewer rare plant species and cultivars were found in older gardens and gardens with more bare soil and there were more rare bird species in bigger gardens. We also found that in some cases, rarity may beget rarity with rare bee species richness having a positive impact on rare plant species/cultivar richness. We also found positive correlations between the number of rare plant, bird and bee species/cultivars and a positive association between rare bee species richness and urbanization.