Student 10-Minute Presentation
Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity
Student
Student Competition
Tierney Shaible
PhD Student
Wayne State University
Detroit, Michigan
Glen R. Hood
Assistant Professor
Wayne State University
Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan
Numerous studies have shown that urbanization, especially urbanization-related pollution, reduces the diversity of soil-dwelling arthropods. High biodiversity in soil arthropods has been shown to improve proper ecosystem functioning by increasing redundancy and resilience in the system. We monitored multiple land use types over the course of the year along an urban to suburban gradient to provide a more complete picture of how the communities of soil dwelling arthropods are affected in urban areas, as these patterns vary temporally. To document this variation, we measured the soil dwelling arthropod biodiversity and common urban contaminants (e.g., heavy metals, pesticides), in addition to land use (e.g., residential lawn, vacant lot, community garden, and parks) across a year along an urban-to-suburban transect in Detroit, MI, a large North American post-industrial city. We hypothesized that contaminant levels would be higher, and biodiversity would be lower in the center of the city, and as the gradient became more suburban, we would see lower contamination levels and higher biodiversity. Our preliminary results do not support this hypothesis. Instead, biodiversity is more tightly correlated with the land use type and land management, regardless of where it falls along the urban-to-suburban transect. Ultimately, this study helps to identify the impacts of urbanization on communities of soil dwelling arthropods, which are vital for healthy soil systems, especially in urban centers where soils are highly negatively impacted.