Urban renewable energy and ecosystems: integrating vegetation with ground-mounted solar arrays increases arthropod abund
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Urban renewable energy and ecosystems: integrating vegetation with ground-mounted solar arrays increases arthropod abundance of key functional groups John H. Armstrong 1,2
&
Andy J. Kulikowski II 1
&
Stacy M. Philpott 1
Accepted: 29 September 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Cities are increasingly developing renewable energy within urban areas, yet the implications for ecosystems have not been explored. This study brings together climate change mitigation policies and ecosystem conservation in urban areas by investigating how ground-mounted solar arrays in parking lots affect arthropod abundance and biodiversity. We assess which arthropods are present under these solar canopies and investigate how integration of vegetation under the solar arrays affects arthropod abundance, abundance of different functional groups, and family richness. We sampled arthropods, collected data on habitat characteristics, and evaluated landscape cover within 2 km of eight study sites around San Jose and Santa Cruz, California. We found substantial abundance and diversity of arthropods underneath ground-mounted solar arrays in urban area parking lots, and that arrays integrated with vegetation have significantly greater arthropod abundance and more detritivores, parasitoids, and family richness. The results demonstrate that ground-mounted solar arrays in parking lots, especially when integrated with vegetation, can be a win-win for climate mitigation, arthropod richness, and ecosystem functioning. Keywords Urban solar energy . Arthropods . Urban ecology . Reconciliation ecology . Urban biodiversity
Introduction Urban areas simultaneously face direct impacts and the challenges of addressing climate change and biodiversity loss. In response to the climate crisis, a growing number of cities are enacting greenhouse gas (GHG) emission mitigation policies and are looking to develop renewable energy within their jurisdictional boundaries (Armstrong 2019; Rosenzweig et al. 2010; Yi 2013). In addition to rooftop solar panels, groundmounted solar arrays are increasingly being built in urban parking lots, fields, parks, and other spaces (Gagnon et al. 2016). Many cities are in biodiversity-rich areas such as Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-020-01063-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * John H. Armstrong [email protected] 1
Environmental Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95062, USA
2
Department of Environmental Studies, Seattle University, Seattle, WA 98122, USA
floodplains, estuaries, and coastlines. By 2030, urban land cover in biodiversity hotspots is expected to increase significantly and is projected to affect more than 25% of all endangered or critically endangered species (CBD 2012; Elmqvist et al. 2013; Wilkinson et al. 2013). Given the importance of urban ecosystems and urban biodiversity, it is critical that ecologists and planners consid
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