OPENAIRE OpenAire Datacite Sygma Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) Docta Complutense Digital repository of Slovenian research organizations dCOBISS.SI Digital Repository DOAJ Crossref European Union Open Data Portal https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-024-00154-z.pdf https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-024-00154-z npj Urban Sustainability Open Access 2024-03-16 2025-02-27 Abstract<p>Greenspaces are important for sustaining healthy urban environments and their human populations. Yet their capacity to support multiple ecosystem services simultaneously (multiservices) compared with nearby natural ecosystems remains virtually unknown. We conducted a global field survey in 56 urban areas to investigate the influence of urban greenspaces on 23 soil and plant attributes and compared them with nearby natural environments. We show that, in general, urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas support similar levels of soil multiservices, with only six of 23 attributes (available phosphorus, water holding capacity, water respiration, plant cover, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), and arachnid richness) significantly greater in greenspaces, and one (available ammonium) greater in natural areas. Further analyses showed that, although natural areas and urban greenspaces delivered a similar number of services at low (&gt;25% threshold) and moderate (&gt;50%) levels of functioning, natural systems supported significantly more functions at high (&gt;75%) levels of functioning. Management practices (mowing) played an important role in explaining urban ecosystem services, but there were no effects of fertilisation or irrigation. Some services declined with increasing site size, for both greenspaces and natural areas. Our work highlights the fact that urban greenspaces are more similar to natural environments than previously reported and underscores the importance of managing urban greenspaces not only for their social and recreational values, but for supporting multiple ecosystem services on which soils and human well-being depends.</p Medio ambiente natural 2410.05 Ecología Humana Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis 0211 other engineering and technologies 710 Urban Green Space 02 engineering and technology 01 natural sciences zelene površine ekosistemske storitve, zelene površine, urbani gozdovi, tla Urban planning Natural (archaeology) 11. Sustainability Urban Heat Islands and Mitigation Strategies info:eu-repo/classification/udc/630*1:630*9 2. Zero hunger Global and Planetary Change Global Analysis of Ecosystem Services and Land Use Geography Ecology 2417.13 Ecología Vegetal Carbon cycle 3. Good health soil, ecosystem services, urban forests 2511 Ciencias del Suelo (Edafología) Archaeology Physical Sciences urban forests HT361-384 Ecología (Biología) Urbanization. City and country Environmental Engineering 711.4:911.375 631.4 Environmental science soil 12. Responsible consumption Impact of Urban Green Space on Public Health Urban ecosystem XXXXXX - Unknown Ecosystem services 14. Life underwater Agroforestry info:eu-repo/classification/udc/630*1 Biology City planning Ecosystem 0105 earth and related environmental sciences SDG-15: Life on land tla FOS: Environmental engineering 15. Life on land ekosistemske storitve Urban ecology HT165.5-169.9 13. Climate action FOS: Biological sciences Environmental Science urbani gozdovi 502.3 ecosystem services David J. Eldridge, Haiying Cui, Jingyi Ding, Miguel Berdugo, Tadeo Sáez‐Sandino, Jorge Durán, Juan Gaitán, José Luis Blanco‐Pastor, Alexandra Rodríguez, César Plaza, Fernando Alfaro, Alberto L. Teixido, Sebastián Abades, Adebola R. Bamigboye, Gabriel F. Peñaloza-Bojacá, Tine Grebenc, Tine U. Nahberger, Javier Gutiérrez Illán, Yurong Liu, Thulani P. Makhalanyane, Ana Rey, Christina Siebe, Wei Sun, Pankaj Trivedi, Jay Prakash Verma, Ling Wang, Jianyong Wang, Tianxue Yang, Eli Zaady, Xiaobing Zhou, Xinquan Zhou, Manuel Delgado‐Baquerizo, 2024-03-16 journalpaper Abstract<p>Greenspaces are important for sustaining healthy urban environments and their human populations. Yet their capacity to support multiple ecosystem services simultaneously (multiservices) compared with nearby natural ecosystems remains virtually unknown. We conducted a global field survey in 56 urban areas to investigate the influence of urban greenspaces on 23 soil and plant attributes and compared them with nearby natural environments. We show that, in general, urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas support similar levels of soil multiservices, with only six of 23 attributes (available phosphorus, water holding capacity, water respiration, plant cover, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), and arachnid richness) significantly greater in greenspaces, and one (available ammonium) greater in natural areas. Further analyses showed that, although natural areas and urban greenspaces delivered a similar number of services at low (&gt;25% threshold) and moderate (&gt;50%) levels of functioning, natural systems supported significantly more functions at high (&gt;75%) levels of functioning. Management practices (mowing) played an important role in explaining urban ecosystem services, but there were no effects of fertilisation or irrigation. Some services declined with increasing site size, for both greenspaces and natural areas. Our work highlights the fact that urban greenspaces are more similar to natural environments than previously reported and underscores the importance of managing urban greenspaces not only for their social and recreational values, but for supporting multiple ecosystem services on which soils and human well-being depends.</p Urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas support similar levels of soil ecosystem services 10.1038/s42949-024-00154-z 101000224