Urbanization alters the abundance and composition of predator communities and leads to aphid outbreaks on urban trees
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Urbanization alters the abundance and composition of predator communities and leads to aphid outbreaks on urban trees Dávid Korányi 1,2,3
&
Viktor Szigeti 4 & László Mezőfi 5 & Előd Kondorosy 1 & Viktor Markó 5
Accepted: 20 September 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Urbanization can affect arthropod abundance in different ways. While species with narrow habitat range and low dispersal ability often respond negatively to urban environments, many habitat generalist species with good dispersal ability reach high densities in city centers. This filtering effect of urban habitats can strongly influence predator-prey-mutualist interactions and may therefore affect the abundance of predatory and phytophagous species both directly and indirectly. Here, we assessed the effect of urbanization on aphids, predatory arthropods, and ants on field maple (Acer campestre) trees in and around the city of Budapest, Hungary. We used the percentage of impervious surfaces within a 500 m radius of each site as an index of the degree of urbanization. We found that the abundance of aphids increased with increasing level of urbanization. However, abundance of predatory arthropods and occurrence of poorly dispersing species within the predator community were negatively related to urbanization, and we identified these two independent factors as significant predictors of aphid abundances. The abundance of ants decreased with urbanization, and contrary to our expectations, did not affect the abundance pattern of aphids. Our results suggest that urbanization, by altering the abundance and composition of predator communities, can disrupt biological control of aphid populations, and thus may contribute to the aphid outbreaks on urban trees. Keywords Urban landscape . Predator-prey interactions . Pest control services . Community composition . Dispersal ability
Introduction The number of people living in cities continues to grow, and the expansion of urban land cover is predicted to increase by 1.2 Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-020-01061-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Dávid Korányi [email protected] 1
Department of Animal Science, University of Pannonia, Deák Ferenc utca 16, Keszthely H-8361, Hungary
2
Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany, “Lendület” Landscape and Conservation Ecology, Alkotmány út 2– 4, Vácrátót H-2163, Hungary
3
Centre for Ecological Research, GINOP Sustainable Ecosystems Group, Klebelsberg Kuno utca 3, Tihany H-8237, Hungary
4
Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany, “Lendület” Ecosystem Services Research Group, Alkotmány út 2–4, Vácrátót H-2163, Hungary
5
Plant Protection Institute, Szent István University, Ménesi út 44, Budapest H-1118, Hungary
million km2 by 2030 (Seto et al. 2012). As a result, a landscape with heterogeneous elements, from semi-natural remnant forests and public green areas to concrete surfaces and artificial stru
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