Urban Ecology and Biological Studies in Brazilian cities: a systematic review

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-1608899/v1

Download PDF

Research Article

Urban Ecology and Biological Studies in Brazilian cities: a systematic review

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1608899/v1

This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License

Journal Publication

published 24 Jan, 2023

Read the published version in Urban Ecosystems →

You are reading this latest preprint version

The number of papers focusing on ecological interactions in urban environments has increased in recent years. This review aimed to address the panorama of urban ecology and biological surveys in Brazil. A systematic search was carried out using the Web of Science and Scopus platforms for papers on urban ecology to understand which institutions, authors, themes, cities, biomes, states, and regions have addressed the theme in Brazil to date. A total of 932 articles were found, in 196 scientific journals. Most papers were published between 2010 and 2019. This involved 350 municipalities in the five Brazilian regions, with Curitiba, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro being the municipalities with the most papers. São Paulo was the state that presented the most papers, with 23.7% of the total, and the Southeast region was the most representative with 36.6%. The biome with the highest concentration of papers (61.2%) was the Atlantic Forest. A total of 2537 authors were registered, affiliated with a total of 413 institutions from 19 countries. The institutions with the most papers were the Federal University of Paraná and University of São Paulo. The most discussed topic was related to botany (69%), and the most used keyword was “urban afforestation”. The number of papers published was greater in municipalities with higher human development index, number of inhabitants and relative urbanized area. This review revealed the scarcity of studies in low-income areas, and the need for greater incorporation of the social aspect, landscape ecology and ecological interactions in urban ecology.

Biological studies

Urban forests

Ecological interactions

Literature review

Urbanization is directly related to a gradual increase in population and is a key phenomenon in the global transformation of land (Pickett et al. 2001). Increasing pressure on natural resources, the disorderly growth of cities, and inappropriate land use alter urban landscapes (Grise et al. 2016), leading cities to a major political-sanitary crisis (Martinez-Alier 2018). In view of this, human beings are a fundamental component in the relationship with other living beings and with the dynamics of systems; humans respond to or cause several events within these systems (Cadenasso et al. 2006; Niemeläet al. 2011).

In this context, urban ecology, in addition to identifying the ecological patterns and processes that act in urban ecosystems (McDonnell 2011), also seeks to assess the interactions between organisms, the built structures that make up cities, and social attributes such as lifestyle and economic and political processes, which interact and influence the physical environment (Cadenasso et al. 2006; Grimm et al. 2008; Collins et al. 2011; Forman 2014). As a multidisciplinary science, urban ecology seeks to integrate ecological and social knowledge with other fields of study, presenting cities as complex, highly interactive social ecosystems (Alberti 2008).

To understand urbanized environments in detail, urban ecology requires diverse approaches and a wide range of disciplines (Grimm et al. 2000, 2008, 2013; Boone and Fragkias 2012; Childers et al. 2015). McPhearson et al. (2016) proposed integrating several disciplines of interest for a more advanced understanding of the characteristics of cities, such as urban planning, natural resource management, economics, anthropology, evolutionary biology, architecture, landscape ecology, social sciences, ecology of communities and ecosystems, geosciences, and urban forestry, among others.

This field of knowledge has grown rapidly across the world over the past two decades, in both research and practice. Pioneering research has been conducted in Europe and Asia (Kowarik 2005; Sukkopp 2008; Wu 2014), and in Brazil, there has been a clear trend of expansion. Many large Brazilian cities have shown a tendency to become greener, but often with the use of exotic species having a largely landscaping purpose, without an ecological context.

Therefore, in Brazil, it is necessary to understand which fields in this area have been the most studied, where these papers are being carried out, and, consequently, whether there is a concentration of studies in any region. In this context, this paper is the first integrative review of urban ecology and related papers in Brazil and seeks to answer the following questions: i) What is the current panorama of urban ecology in Brazil? ii) Which are the most studied themes in this area? iii) Does the socioeconomic aspect of regions directly affect the number of publications in the area of urban ecology? iv) What are the authors, journals, universities, cities, states and regions with the greatest number of papers published? and v) Which are the traits of municipalities linked to the highest number of publications?

2.1 Bibliographic survey

We consider that the term “urban ecology” includes not only articles developed purely in the scope of ecology, but also everything that surrounds it, such as knowledge of existing species, as well as economic and social research linked to green areas and landscape analysis. We performed a systematic search for articles as suggested by Page et al. (2021) (i.e., PRISMA statement) (Fig. 1). The searches were carried out in the Web of Science, SciELO, and Google Scholar databases. The bibliographic survey was carried out in March 2020 and without restriction on the year of publication.

Search engines in English and Portuguese were used: Terms in English included: “urban biodiversity”, “urban ecology”, “urban planning”, “urban ecosystems”, “ecosystems services”, “green infrastructure”, and “ecosystem management”. In Portuguese, terms included: “biodiversidade urbana”, “ecologia urbana”, “planejamento urbano”, “ecosistema urbano”, “serviços ecossistêmicos”, and “infrasetrutura verde”.

From the initial survey of articles, it was possible to create a list of the journals with the greatest coverage of the topic and the most cited authors. Therefore, further searches were carried out for papers in these journals, considering articles accepted until 2019. Articles were also searched in the Curriculum Vitae’s of the most cited authors individually, to make sure that no article had been left behind.

After the removal of duplicate records, the remaining records were analyzed, and the following inclusion criteria were applied: (i) articles focused on urban ecology, (ii) studies were carried out in Brazil, and (iii) studies were located in urban and peri-urban areas.

2.2 Data Collection

From the articles obtained in the bibliographic survey, the following data were collected: A) Location of the research: 1- State, 2- Municipality, 3- Biome; B) Central theme (within the context of urban ecology): 1–Flora, 2–Ecology, 3–Environment, 4–Landscape, 5–Social (papers involving direct human context), 6 - Theoretical (papers that present proposals for surveys and ecological theories in urban centers), and 7 – Fauna; C) Authors; D) Author affiliation; E) Year of publication; F) Journal; G) Keywords of the article (Table 1). Regional data were obtained a posteriori from the list of cities using IBGE data (IBGE 2021). These data were: 1) human development index (HDI); 2) number of inhabitants; 3) area; 4) rural and/or urban environment; and 5) afforestation of public roads.

Despite the main subject being “urban ecology,” the publications linked within each theme listed in item “B” are within this scope, considering that studies of vegetation, fauna, or even papers on social ecology are within the main subject. Therefore, to be accepted in the present review, the only guideline was that the paper had to be conducted within cities and in relation to living beings.

Within each theme, articles were classified into more specific subthemes. In the botany area, the articles were classified into: “survey of urban vegetation,” “morphometry,” “fungi,” “agroforestry,” “phytosanity,” “epiphytes,” and “others”. Papers focused on zoology were classified into: “invertebrates,” “birds,” “mammals,” “bird survey,” “mammal survey,” “amphibians,” “pollination,” “reptiles,” “bees,” “anurans,” “fauna survey”, and “others”. In the social area, the papers were divided into: “society,” “economy,” “management,” “landscape,” “public policies,” “environmental education,” “historical,” “planning,” “infrastructure,” “legislation,” “sustainability,” and “technology”. In the area of ecology, the studies were separated into: “ecosystem services,” “ecological restoration,” “ecological interactions,” and “conservation”. In environment, they were separated into: “climate,” “soil,” “acoustics,” and “water”. Landscape articles were separated into: “geographic information system (GIS)”, “landscape ecology,” and “green corridors”. Finally, theorists were separated into: “review” and “theoretical ecology”. Each article could be classified under more than one sub-theme (e.g., vegetation survey and phytosanitary analysis of plants; or others, avifauna surveys, and seed dispersal).

Biome data were considered mainly to help us understand the most studied biomes, even though study areas are not natural, but of an anthropized nature, such as urban green areas. However, understanding the biome to which they belong is the first step towards understanding the species and studies that have been emphasized in each location. Urban green areas are defined as forest fragments, urban trees, and squares.

Table 1

Data that were collected for the systematic review on urban ecology in Brazil.
Category	Data collected
A) Places of Study	State
	City
	Biome
B) Themes (Subthemes)	Botany	(Survey; morphometry; fungi; agroforestry; phytosanitary; epiphytes; others)
	Ecology	(Ecosystem services, restoration; ecological interactions; conservation)
	Environment	(Weather; soil, acoustics, water)
	Landscape	(Sig landscape ecology; green corridors)
	Social	(Society; economy; management; landscaping; public policies; environmental education; history; planning; infrastructure; legislation; sustainability; technology)
	Teorics	(Review; theoretical ecology)
	Fauna	Invertebrates; birds; mammals; bird survey; mammal survey; amphibian; pollination; reptiles; bees; anurans; fauna survey; others)
C) Authors
D) Affiliation
E) Year of publication
F) Journal
G) Keywords
H) Variables of Municipalities (IBGE)	Human Development Index (HDI)
	Number of Inhabitants
	Afforestation of public roads (%)
	Area of the City (km²)
	Urbanized Area of the City (%)

2.3 Data analysis

Data were compiled and analyzed using Microsoft Excel software. The R program (R Core Team 2021) was used through the base package for the analysis of correlation data between variables, as well as construction of graphs.

Results

A total of 1209 scientific articles were collected from the search engines. In the first selection, articles that did not fit were removed, and a selection was made by the authors, leaving 932 articles belonging to 181 scientific journals (Fig. 1; Complementary Table 1).

Of the scientific journals, 15 presented more than 10 scientific articles, representing 68.2% of the total. The journals with the most published articles were Revista Brasileira de Arborização Urbana with 311 articles (33.4%), followed by Biotemas with (5.7%), Revista Árvore (4.3), Revista Brasileira de Geografia Física (3.6%), Ciência Florestal (3%), Biota Neotropica (2.6%) and Urban Ecosystems (2.6%).

Most of the articles (75.2%) were published in the decade of 2010 and 2019. Between 2000 and 2009, 23.6% were found, and finally, from 1990 to 1999, 1.1% were found (Fig. 2A). Only one article was found in digital format between 1980 and 1989. Between the years 2017 and 2019, the highest number of articles was published, representing 9.44% and 9.12% of the total, respectively. These years were followed by 2018, 2010, and 2016 (Fig. 2B).

The reviewed papers were carried out in 350 municipalities, representing 6.3% of Brazilian municipalities (IBGE 2021) (Complementary table 2). The vast majority of the publications (88%) were carried out in only one location. Papers in more than one location accounted for 5.2%, ranging from two to 50 municipalities. Theoretical papers (not related, therefore, to any specific location) corresponded to 6.8% of the total.

The municipalities with the highest number of studies were Curitiba-PR with 7.2% of the total, followed by São Paulo-SP and Rio de Janeiro-RJ, both with 5.1% each, followed by Belo Horizonte-MG (3%), Uberlândia-MG (2.7%), Maringá-PR (2.5%), Campinas-SP (2.3%), Recife-PE (2.2%), and Manaus-AM (2.1%). These nine municipalities represented 32% of the total. All other municipalities had less than 2% representation each.

Five states concentrated 64% of the papers reviewed: São Paulo accounted for 23.7% of the papers, followed by Paraná (15.4%), Minas Gerais (10.6%), Rio Grande do Sul (7.7%), and Rio de Janeiro (6.6%). The state with the largest number of municipalities cited on the present review were: São Paulo (86 municipalities, corresponding to 24.6% of the total), followed by Rio Grande do Sul (39 and 11.1%), Paraná (36 and 10.3%), Minas Gerais (28.8%), and Pará (19.5%). These five states comprise 60% of the total number of municipalities on the reviewed papers (Complementary table 2, Fig. 3).

The regions with the highest number of municipalities with published papers were the Southeast, with 36.6% of the total, followed by the South (26.3%), Northeast (16.6%), Central-West (11.4%) and North (9.1%). Proportional to the total number of municipalities in the region, the Central-West had 8.6% of the municipalities represented, followed by the Southeast and South with 7.7% each, the North with 7.1% and the Northeast with 3.2%. As for the Brazilian regions, the Southeast represents 42.3% of the papers, followed by the South (25.8%), Northeast (14.5%), North (8.9%) and Central-West (8.5%) (Table 2).

Table 2: Table showing the data with the total number of cities by region, percentage of cities with study by region, percentage of cities studied by the total number of cities in the region and total articles published by region.
Regions	Total Number Of Cities	Cities Studied In Total (%)	Cities Studied in Total Cities (%)	Total Of Papers (%)
Southeast	1668	36.6	7.7	42.3
South	1191	26.3	7.7	25.8
North East	1793	16.6	3.2	14.5
Central-west	466	11.4	8.6	8.5
North	450	9.1	7.1	8.9
Total	5568	100	-	100

Among the biomes, 61.2% of the reviewed papers were carried out in municipalities located in the Atlantic Forest, 20.8% were carried out in the Cerrado, 8.3% in the Amazon, 5.3% in the Caatinga, 4.3% in the Pampas, and only 0.2% in the Pantanal. Papers carried out in only one biome added up to 82.4% of the total, while papers carried out in more than one biome, meaning those also carried out in more than one municipality, added up to 17.6%. Of these, 17% were developed in two biomes, 0.34% in three biomes, and only one paper presented four biomes. Most of those focused on two biomes included the Atlantic Forest (Fig. 4).

We found 2537 authors referring to the 932 reviewed papers (Complementary Table 3). Of these, 82.5% are authors who participated only once, 11.4% participated in two papers, and 2.9% participated three times. Only 3.2% of authors publish frequently in the area of urban ecology (Fig. 5a). These most frequent authors range from four to 51 published papers each. The most relevant authors in the field were: Dr. Daniela Biondi of the Department of Forest Sciences at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Dr. Demóstenes Ferreira da Silva-Filho of the Forest Sciences department of the Luiz de Queiroz Higher School of Agriculture (ESALQ), and Dr. João Carlos Nucci, professor at the Department of Geography at the UFPR.

The number of authors in each of the reviewed papers varies from one to 32, and the values decreased as the number of authors increased. The most common number of authors per paper was three (24.5% of articles), followed by two (21.5%), and four authors (18.3%). Papers with 10 authors or more represented 3.6% of the total (Fig. 5a, 5b).

The authors are affiliated with 413 institutions, located in 19 countries. Brazil's largest research partners were the United States, Germany, England and Spain. Brazilian institutions were responsible, however, for 95% of registered institutions. The institutions with the highest number of published articles were the UFPR, University of São Paulo (USP), Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU) and ESALQ. Institutions with only one record accounted for 62.3% of the total, while institutions with two papers accounted for 12.8%. Only 7.7% of institutions had more than 10 records (Table 3). Among the universities that stood out, only one is not public, this being the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio).

Table 3

Institutions with the highest rates of publication of articles on urban ecology in Brazil, followed by the institution's abbreviations, the state, the number of articles published by the institution and the percentage in relation to the total number of publications.
Institutions	Abbreviations	State	N	%
Federal University of Paraná	UFPR	Paraná	100	10.7
University of Sao Paulo	USP	São Paulo	73	7.8
Federal University of Uberlândia	UFU	Minas Gerais	42	4.5
Luiz de Queiroz Higher School of Agronomy*	ESALQ - USP	São Paulo	37	4
State University of Maringá	UEM	Paraná	34	3.6
Federal University of São Carlos	UFSCAR	São Paulo	33	3.5
State University of São Paulo**	UNESP	São Paulo	32	3.4
University of Campinas	UNICAMP	São Paulo	31	3.3
Federal University of Santa Maria	UFSM	Rio Grande Do Sul	28	3
Federal University of Pernambuco	UFPE	Pernambuco	26	2.8
federal university of Bahia	UFPA	Bahia	25	2.7
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro	UFRJ	Rio de Janeiro	25	2.7
Goias Federal University	UFG	Goiás	21	2.3
Federal University of Minas Gerais	UFMG	Minas Gerais	20	2.1
Technical University of Paraná	UTFPR	Paraná	20	2.1
Federal University of Viçosa	UFV	Minas Gerais	19	2
Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul	UFMS	Mato Grosso do Sul	18	1.9
Federal University of Mato Grosso	UFMT	Mato Grosso	18	1.9
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro	PUC-RIO	Rio de Janeiro	17	1.8
Rural Federal University of Pernambuco	UFRPE	Pernambuco	17	1.8
Midwest State University	UNICENTRO	Paraná	17	1.8
Federal University of Amazonas	UFAM	Amazonas	15	1.6
Federal University of Brasilia	UNB	Brasília	15	1.6
National Institute for Amazonian Research	INPA	Amazonas	14	1.5
Federal University of Campina Grande	UFCG	Paraíba	14	1.5
Federal University of Paraiba	UFPB	Paraíba	14	1.5
Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro	UFRRJ	Rio de Janeiro	14	1.5
Federal Institute of Paraná	IFPR	Paraná	13	1.4
Federal University of Espirito Santo	UFES	Espírito Santo	13	1.4
Federal University of Santa Catarina	UFSC	Santa Catarina	13	1.4
Juiz de Fora Federal University	UFJF	Minas Gerais	12	1.3
Federal Rural University of the Amazon	UFRA	Amazonas	12	1.3

As for the topics covered in the articles, those with the highest incidence were: Botany (68.6% of the articles) and Zoology (34.9%), followed by Social (33%), Ecology (13%), Landscape (12.4%), Theoretical (10.8%), and Environment (7.3%). Botany, the subject that has the largest number of papers published, was divided into six sub-themes, with floristic surveys being the main sub-theme with 32% of the total. As for social issues, the most discussed sub-themes were related to society (21.5%), the economy (5.5%) and public management (2.2%). As for zoology, the reviewed papers were classified into 15 sub-themes, and papers on invertebrates (10.6%), birds (6.9%), and mammals (6.7%) were the most abundant (Table 4; Fig. 6).

Table 4

Publication themes of urban ecology articles
Themes	Subthemes	N	%
Botany 639 68.56%	Flora Survey	298	31.97
	Morphometry	17	1.82
	Fungi	10	1.07
	Agroforestry	4	0.43
	Phytosanity	3	0.32
	Epiphytes	2	0.21
	Others	305	32.72
Ecology 121 12.98%	Ecosystem Services	47	5.04
	Restoration	40	4.29
	Ecological Interactions	29	3.11
	Conservation	5	0.54
Environment 68 7.30%	Climate	48	5.15
	Ground	18	1.93
	Acoustics	1	0.11
	Water	1	0.11
Landscape 116; 12.44%	Sig Landscape Ecology	114	12.23
Landscape 116; 12.44%	Green Corridors	2	0.21
Social 308 33.05%	Society	200	21.46
	Economy	51	5.47
	Management	20	2.15
	Landscaping	7	0.75
	Public Policy	7	0.75
	Environmental Education	5	0.54
	Historical	4	0.43
	Planning	4	0.43
	Infrastructure	3	0.32
	Legislation	3	0.32
	Sustainability	3	0.32
	Technology	1	0.11
Theoretic 101; 10.84%	Revision	54	5.79
Theoretic 101; 10.84%	Theoretical Ecology	47	5.04
Fauna 325 34.87%	Invertebrates	99	10.62
	Birds	64	6.87
	Mammals	62	6.65
	Raising Birds	34	3.65
	Mammals Survey	13	1.39
	Amphibians	9	0.97
	Pollination	7	0.75
	Reptiles	7	0.75
	Bees	6	0.64
	Frogs	2	0.21
	Fauna Survey	2	0.21
	Others	21	2.25

We found 1915 keywords used in the reviewed articles. Words used only once accounted for 76% of the total. The words that appeared more often were: “Urban afforestation,” “Urban planning,” “Green areas,” “Urban ecology,” “Urban ecology,” “Afforestation,” “Urban trees,” “Exotic species,” “Inventory,” and “Urban forestry”. Table 5 shows the 20 most-used keywords.

Table 5

Most used keywords in urban ecology scientific articles
Keywords	N	%
Urban Afforestation	116	3.21
Urban Planning	52	1.44
Green Areas	48	1.33
Urban Ecology	40	1.11
Urban Ecology	31	0.86
Afforestation	27	0.75
Urban Trees	23	0.64
Exotic Species	23	0.64
Inventory	23	0.64
Urban Forestry	23	0.64
Urban Forest	22	0.61
Biodiversity	20	0.55
Atlantic Forest	20	0.55
Environmental Quality	20	0.55
Phytosociology	19	0.53
Urban Parks	19	0.53
Trees	18	0.50
Thick	18	0.50
Urbanization	18	0.50
Urbanization	18	0.50
Planning	17	0.47
Landscaping	16	0.44
Atlantic Forest	15	0.42
Conservation	15	0.42
Urban Planning	15	0.42
Amazon	14	0.39
Urban Environment	14	0.39
Conservation	14	0.39
Road Afforestation	13	0.36
Diversity	13	0.36

Regarding the attributes of municipalities acquired through the IBGE data platform, when only municipalities with five or more reviewed papers were observed, the variables that showed a significant correlation with the number of publications were HDI, number of inhabitants, and percentage of urbanized area (Table 6). Total area of the municipality and percentage of afforestation of public roads did not correlate with the number of published articles.

Table 6: Municipalities variables and the correlation with the number of articles published in Urban Ecology.
Variables	rho	p
Human Development Index (HDI)	0.36	0.02^*
Number of Inhabitants	0.49	0.002^*
Total Area	-0.05	0.75^ns
Urbanized Area	0.38	0.02^*
Afforestation of public roads	0.28	0.09^ns

Ecology is a branch of science that was initially dedicated to isolated areas with little human influence (Grimm et al. 2008). However, with the increase in urban population and the increasing alteration of natural landscapes, new studies have also begun to be conducted in urban environments (Ramalho and Robbs, 2012). Urban ecology was established in Brazil during the 1970s (Noyes and Progulske 1974; Sukopp 1998; Grimm et al. 2008), with an emphasis on purely biological research, ignoring the social aspect (Wu 2014). In recent years, there has been interest in researching the relationship between ecological, socioeconomic, and cultural attributes of urban centers (Ramalho and Hobbs, 2012; Shackleton et al. 2021).

This increase may be related to the growing concern of societies about the environment, which is a global trend in countries such as China (Yao et al. 2019), the United States (Ossola et al. 2021), Germany (Korányi et al. 2021), and in South America (Graells et al. 2021). The number of articles and the increase in publications over the years, especially in the last few decades, found in the present review for Brazil, highlight the high interest in urban ecology in the country. However, the results of this review show that there is still a concentration of articles in certain geographic regions and lines of research.

Most of the articles found in this review focus on the study of urban ecology under the theme of Botany, a result supported by the most frequent keywords, “urban afforestation” and “green areas”. The attention given to urban afforestation can be explained by the “luxury effect” (Hope et al. 2003), that is, the tendency of neighborhoods and cities with high socioeconomic standards to be “greener” and to present a more biodiverse flora. Another important aspect is the immediate and measurable benefits of afforestation (Sartori et. al 2021), which could promote greater interest in this area of study. Davis et al. (2011), for example, demonstrated the possibility of reducing carbon emissions by 80% with afforestation of streets and backyards in the city of Leicester, England. Jones (2021) reported an increasing improvement in the quality of life of New York residents with each tree planted. In addition, health improvements in the population due to the increase in air quality (Jones and McDermott 2018) and climate mitigation (Martini et al. 2017) result from investment in biodiverse and abundant urban afforestation. The studies analyzed a combination of socioeconomic aspects, human well-being, and biodiversity. More such efforts are needed to achieve transdisciplinarity in urban ecology.

Despite growth, areas such as landscape ecology, environment, and ecology are rarely addressed in terms of urban ecology, and this is emphasized by the use of the keyword “urban ecology” in recent years. The importance of landscape ecology, for example, is expressed by the potential of the afforestation of streets and avenues to connect urban forest fragments (Brun et al. 2007). Understanding the relationship between the isolation of urban green areas, the behavioral characteristics of the fauna in these fragments, and the role of street afforestation as ecological corridors is essential to make cities a shelter for biodiversity (Soares and Lentini 2019). Landscape ecology allows an integrated look at spatial heterogeneity on the ecological scale: ecosystem, community, and population (Metzger 2001).

The context of the word “ecology” is broad and needs to be understood within the scope of species and the relationships between them. Thus, we consider that surveys, economic, and social studies are equally important for the understanding of this subject. The papers incorporated in the theme of “environment” (“climate,” “soil,” “acoustics,” and “water”) and “ecology” (“ecosystem services,” “restoration,” “ecological interactions,” and “conservation”) proved to be little-addressed in the urban ecology theme. As transdisciplinarity is one of the objectives of urban ecology (Young & Wolf 2006), it is essential to further study these themes, which directly affect the human population. The urgency of this inclusion is highlighted when we observe the key role played by afforestation of urban roads in noise attenuation (Oliveira et al. 2018), the role of green areas in greater thermal comfort (Tejas et al. 2011), water regulation in cities, and carbon sequestration (Almeida et al. 2018).

Brazilian journals focusing on botany have the highest number of records, as indicated by the Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Arborização Urbana (REVSBAU), with one-third of the articles published. In addition, there are a significant number of records published in botanical journals such as Rodriguésia, Cerne, Árvore, and Revista de Sociedade Brasileira de Botânica, in addition to REVSBAU. Once again, this is due to the fact that papers focused on plant biology have a greater tradition, especially those focused on urban afforestation. Studies involving fauna and human health in the context of urban ecology are more recent and sporadic; therefore, journals that publish these themes were less frequent in the present review. Furthermore, we can see that there are a large number of journals that occasionally publish on urban ecology. More precisely, 92% of journals published less than ten times on the subject.

Among the authors, only 3% published frequently with urban ecology; the vast majority are sporadic authors. This can be explained by the interdisciplinary character of urban ecology as a science, which promotes partnerships between authors of different expertise’s to combine the different perspectives of their areas to study the urban ecosystem (Young and Wolf 2006). In addition, as it is a science of growing interest in Brazil and the world, laboratories focused on this theme are still in training, as are the students. It is possible that we will have a greater number of authors specializing in urban ecology in future publications.

The universities that published the most on this subject were UFPR, USP, UFU and ESALQ. These universities have laboratories and researchers specializing in urban ecology, and are thus responsible for the concentration of publications in just a few universities. Therefore, the ESALQ is one of the most important universities in this sense because of the research developed by Dr. Demostenes Ferreira da Silva Filho and UFPR on behalf of Dr. Daniela Biondi.

The main universities are in the cities of Curitiba and São Paulo, both with a significant population and a high HDI (IBGE 2021). This relationship between socioeconomic factors and publications shows a pattern: municipalities with a higher HDI present more research in urban ecology. At the same time, this shows that the scarcity of studies, access to green areas, and ecosystem services mainly affect marginalized populations (Martinez-Alier 2007). These populations are often exposed to greater risks of flooding (Pontes et al., 2017) and live in precarious housing in “sacrifice zones” (Bullard 1994; Santos 2018). In addition, low-income populations, which are already in environmentally unstable areas, will be the most affected by climate change, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate report (2021).

In addition to municipalities, the results showed a great disparity between states and regions in terms of the number of articles published. The South and Southeast regions were responsible for 63% of published papers, despite having an area of less than 20% of the national territory. These are also the most developed states with a longer tradition of urban research universities.

The Atlantic Forest, despite occupying only 15% of the national territory, is where 70% of the population and 60% of Brazilian municipalities are concentrated (IBGE 2021). This region houses the main universities and researchers, thus being the most studied region in the country in terms of urban ecology. At the same time, in the Cerrado and in the Amazon, the number of reviewed papers is related to the population that occupies these areas, and not to the territorial area. For example, the Amazon occupies about 50% of the national territory, and is responsible for only 8% of the papers, proportional to the population of the biome.

With this review, we present a panorama of publications focused on urban ecology in Brazil. Our study revealed the growing interest and importance of ecology in Brazil, as demonstrated by the increase in publications on the topic over the last few decades. However, these papers are still concentrated in the major areas of biological sciences (i.e., botany and zoology), with an emphasis on research on urban afforestation and surveys of urban fauna, especially birds and insects. Thus, we emphasize the knowledge gap in studies that intrinsically relate ecology and society, approach the ecology of landscape in the urban environment, or focus on ecology as research into the interaction between fauna and flora in the urban environment, as well as essential knowledge for the conservation of these species.

We found that the universities that publish the most on this subject are in Curitiba and São Paulo, which represent the relationship between cities with a dense population, higher HDI, and a greater representation of publications related to urban ecology. Our results highlight the scarcity of studies on the subject in regions other than the southern and southeastern regions of the country. It is expected that the number of papers will increase over time, with a greater concentration of frequent authors currently starting their studies in this line of research.

Acknowledgements: We thank the biology students who helped us with data collection, as well as Marcelo Hermosilla, Gabriel Borja, and the biologist Renata Bella Vieira for their help and enthusiasm in the progress of this article.

Funding: We did not have funding to write this article.

Conflicts of interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest for any part of this article.

Availability of data and material: All data is attached

Code availability: Not applicable

Authors' contributions: The idea for this article came from Richieri A. Sartori. All other authors were responsible for data collection, classification, and analysis. All the authors participated in writing this article.

Ethical approval: Not applicable

Concert to participate: Not applicable

Concert for publication: Not applicable

Alberti M (2008) Advances in urban ecology: integrating humans and ecological processes in urban ecosystems. New York, Springer.

Almeida CMVB, Mariano MV, Agostinho F, Liu GY, Giannetti BF (2018) Exploring the potential of urban park size for the provision of ecosystem services to urban centers: A case study in São Paulo, Brazil. Building and Environment 144: 450-458. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2018.08.036

Boone CG, Fragkias M (2012) Urbanization and sustainability. Springer, Dordrecht. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-5666-3_1

Brun FGK., Link D, Brun EJ (2007) O emprego da arborização na manutenção da biodiversidade de fauna em áreas urbanas. Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Arborização Urbana 2(1): 117-127. http://dx.doi.org/10.5380/revsbau.v2i1.66253

Bullard RD (1994) Unequal environmental protection: Incorporating environmental justice in decision making. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco.

Cadenasso ML, Pickett STA, Grove JM (2006) Dimensions of ecosystem complexity: heterogeneity, connectivity, and history. Ecological Complexity 3:1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecocom.2005.07.002

Childers, D.L.; Cadenasso, M.L.; Grove, J.M.; Marshall, V.; McGrath, B.; Pickett, S.T.A. An Ecology for Cities: A Transformational Nexus of Design and Ecology to Advance Climate Change Resilience and Urban Sustainability. Sustainability 2015, 7, 3774-3791. https://doi.org/10.3390/su7043774

Collins BM, Everett RG, Stephens SL (2011) Impactsoffireexclusionandrecentmanagedfireonforeststructure in oldgrowthSierra Nevada mixed-coniferforests. Ecosphere 2:1–14

Davis S.J., Peters G.P. and Caldeira K. (2011). The supply chain of CO2 emissions PNAS Journal. October 17, 2011 | 108 (45)

Forman, R. T. (2014). Urban ecology: science of cities. Cambridge University Press.

Graells G., Celis-Diez J.L., Corcoran D and Gelcich S. (2022). Bird Communities in Coastal Areas. Effects of Anthropogenic Influences and Distance From the Coast. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. V. 10. Disponible in: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fevo.2022.807280. DOI=10.3389/fevo.2022.807280

Grimm NB, Faeth SH, Golubiewski NE, et al (2008) Global changeandtheecologyofcities. Science 319:756–760

Grimm NB, Grove JM, Pickett STA, Redman CL (2000) Integrated approaches toLong-Termstudiesofurbanecological systems. BioScience 50:571-584

Grimm NB, Redman CL, Boone CG, et al (2013) ViewingtheUrban Socio-ecological System Through a Sustainability Lens: Lessonsand Prospects fromthe Central Arizona–Phoenix LTER Programme. In: Singh SJ, Haberl H, Chertow M, et al. (eds) LongTerm Socio-EcologicalResearch: Studies in Society-NatureInteractionsAcrossSpatialand Temporal Scales. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 217–246

Grise MM, Biondi D, Araki H (2016) Distribuição espacial e cobertura de vegetação das tipologias de Áreas Verdes de Curitiba, PR. Floresta e Ambiente 23:498-510

Hope D, Gries C, Zhu W, et al (2003) Socioeconomics drive urbanplantdiversity. PNAS 100:8788–8792.https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1537557100

IBGE – Instituto Brasileiro De Geografia E Estatística.IBGE Cidades.Site: https://cidades.ibge.gov.br. Acesso em: novembro de 2021.

IPCC (2021) The IntergovernmentalPanelonClimateChange (IPCC) ChangeaccessedMarch, 2021

Jones BA (2021) Plantingurbantreesto improve qualityoflife? The lifesatisfactionimpactsofurbanafforestation. Forest PolicyandEconomics 125:102408.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102408

Jones BA, McDermott SM (2018) The economicsofurbanafforestation: Insights fromanintegratedbioeconomic-health model. Journalof Environmental Economicsand Management 89:116–135.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2018.03.007

Korányi D, Gallé R, Donkó B, et al (2021) Urbanization does notaffectgreenspace bird speciesrichness in a mid-sizedcity. UrbanEcosystems 24:789–800

Kowarik I (2005) Wild urbanwoodlands: Towards a conceptual framework. In: Wild urbanwoodlands. Springer, pp 1–32

McPhearson T, Pickett ST, Grimm NB, et al (2016) Advancingurbanecologytoward a scienceofcities. BioScience 66:198–212

Martínez Alier J (2007) Politicalecology as thestudyofecologicaldistributionconflicts. Heinrich-Boll Foundation

Martinez-Alier J (2018) EcologicalDistributionConflictsandtheVocabularyof Environmental Justice. In: Dayal V, Duraiappah A, Nawn N (eds) Ecology, Economyand Society: Essays in HonourofKanchan Chopra. Springer, Singapore, pp 187–204

Martini A, Biondi D, Batista AC (2017) Urbanforestcomponentsinfluencingmicroclimateandcoolingpotential. Rev Árvore 41(6):e410603.https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-90882017000600003

Mcdonnel M. (2011) The historyofurbanecology: anecologist perspective. Urbanecology: Patterns, processes andapplications 9: 5-13.

McPhearson T., Pickett S.T.A., Grimm N.B., Niemelä J., Alberti M., Elmqvist T., Weber C., Haase D., Breuste J., Qureshi S., Advancing Urban Ecology toward a Science of Cities, BioScience, Volume 66, Issue 3, 01 March 2016, Pages 198–212, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biw002

Metzger JP (2001) O que é ecologia de paisagens? Biota neotropica 1:1–9

Noyes JH, Progulske DR (1974) A SymposiumonWildlife in anUrbanizingEnvironment, November 27-29, 1973, Springfield, Massachusetts. CooperativeExtension Service, Universityof Massachusetts

Oliveira, J. D.; Biondi, D.; Batista, A. C.; Reis, A. R. N.; Nesi, J. Atenuação do ruído de tráfego de vias urbanas pela vegetação em Curitiba -Paraná, Brasil. Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Arborização Urbana, Curitiba, v. 13, n. 2, p. 13-28. 2018. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5380/revsbau.v13i2.63655

Ossola A, Cadenasso ML, Meineke EK (2021) Valuingthe role of time in urbanecology. Frontiers in Ecologyand Evolution 9:152

Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, Boutron I, Hoffmann TC, Mulrow CD, et al. The PRISMA 2021 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ 2021;372:n71. doi: 10.1136/bmj.n71

Pickett ST, Cadenasso ML, Grove JM, et al (2001) Urbanecological systems: linkingterrestrialecological, physical, andsocioeconomic componentes ofmetropolitanareas. Annual review ofecologyandsystematics 32:127–157

PONTES, M. L. C.; LIMA, A. M.; SILVA JUNIOR, J. A. S.; SADECK, C. C. A.. Dinâmica das áreas de várzea do município de Belém/PA e a influência da precipitação pluviométrica na formação de pontos alagamentos. Caderno de Geografia, v.27, n.49, p.285-303, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5752/p.2318-2962.2017v27n49p285

R Core Team (2021). R: A languageandenvironment for statisticalcomputing. R Foundation for StatisticalComputing, Vienna, Austria. URL https://www.R-project.org/.

Ramalho C.E and Hobbs R.J. Time for a change: dynamic urban ecology,Trends in Ecology & Evolution,Volume 27, Issue 3,2012,Pages 179-188,ISSN 0169-5347,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2011.10.008.

SANTOS, C. F. dos. Desenvolvimento e meio ambiente: a construção do município de Rio Grande (RS/Brasil) como uma zona de sacrifício. PerCursos, Florianópolis, v. 19, n. 41, p. 50 - 78, 2019. DOI: 10.5965/1984724619412018050. Disponível em: https://www.revistas.udesc.br/index.php/percursos/article/view/1984724619412018050. Acesso em: 21 mar. 2022.

Sartori R.A., Braga J.J., França S.A. and Mata S. (2021). Urban forestry in the south area of Rio de Janeiro: the society, the species and the damage to urban infrastructure. Rodriguesia. Rio de Janeiro. Rodriguésia 72 • 2021 • https://doi.org/10.1590/2175-7860202172108

Shackleton CM, Cilliers SS, duToit MJ, Davoren E (2021) The need for anurbanecologyofthe Global South. In: Urbanecology in the Global South. Springer, pp 1–26

Soanes K, Lentini PE (2019) When cities are thelast chance for savingspecies. Frontiers in EcologyandtheEnvironment 17:225–231

Sukopp, H. (1998). Urban ecology—scientific and practical aspects. In Urban ecology (pp. 3-16). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Sukopp, H. (2008). On the early history of urban ecology in Europe. In Urban Ecology (pp. 79-97). Springer, Boston, MA.

Tejas GT, de Azevedo MGF, Locatelli M (2011) A influência de áreas verdes no comportamento higrotérmico e na percepção ambiental do citadino em duas unidades amostrais no município de Porto Velho, Rondônia, Brasil. Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Arborização Urbana 6:15–34

Wu J, Xiang W-N, Zhao J (2014) Urbanecology in China: Historicaldevelopmentsand future directions. LandscapeandUrban Planning 125:222–233

Yao N, van den Bosch CCK, Yang J, et al (2019) Beijing’s 50 million new urbantrees: Strategicgovernance for large-scaleurbanafforestation. UrbanForestry&UrbanGreening 44:126392

Young RF, Wolf SA (2006) Goalattainment in urbanecologyresearch: A bibliometric review 1975–2004. UrbanEcosyst 9:179–193. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-006-8589-2

No competing interests reported.

Download PDF

Journal Publication

published 24 Jan, 2023

Read the published version in Urban Ecosystems →

Editorial decision: Major revision
27 Oct, 2022
Reviews received at journal
17 May, 2022
Reviewers agreed at journal
13 May, 2022
Reviewers invited by journal
12 May, 2022
Editor assigned by journal
11 May, 2022
Editor invited by journal
11 May, 2022
Submission checks completed at journal
11 May, 2022
First submitted to journal
29 Apr, 2022

You are reading this latest preprint version

Urban Ecology and Biological Studies in Brazilian cities: a systematic review

Status:

Journal Publication

Version 1

Abstract

Figures

1. Introduction

2. Material And Methods

2.1 Bibliographic survey

2.2 Data Collection

2.3 Data analysis

3. Discussion

4. Final Considerations

Declarations

References

Additional Declarations

Supplementary Files

Status:

Journal Publication

Version 1