Importance of urban green areas’ connectivity for the conservation of pollinators

GRAFFIGNA, SOFIA; GONZÁLEZ-VAQUERO, ROCÍO A.; TORRETTA, JUAN P.; MARRERO, HUGO J.

Urban Ecosystems

Kluwer Academic Publishers

Año: 2023

1083-8155

Urbanizationis one of the main processes generating large changes on the Earth´s surface.The remaining green spaces  within citiescan be of utmost importance for pollinator conservation. Through a systematicliterature review, we evaluate  how theconnectivity of urban green areas (parks, gardens, squares, among others) indifferent cities can affect the richness  and abundance of pollinators. We utilize aconnectivity metric using satellite images corresponding to 241 urban green  areas obtained from 20 published works. Thegreen areas were classified in urban, peri-urban and non-urban according to  their percentage of impervious surfaceestimated in each image. The metric relates the connectivity of green areascontained  within images with a radius of500 m immersed within a city. Our study shows the richness and abundance ofpollinators  is positively correlatedwith the connectivity of green areas in sites with different degrees ofurbanization, mainly in urban  and peri-urbansites. Our results emphasize the importance of green spaces to maintain thepollinator’s community in cities,  andsuggest that proper design and/or management could improve conditions for theseimportant insects.