Leveraging urban greenspaces to bolster regional conservation priorities

Abstract

Cities offer viable habitat and are frequently located in biodiversity hotspots, but are often overlooked in conservation planning. Here, we investigated how urban greenspaces can support conservation goals within the Conservation Lands Network, a regional biodiversity conservation plan for the San Francisco (SF) Bay Area, which classifies lands that are either essential for or contributing to meeting biodiversity conservation goals using Marxan model selection. We compared vegetation (normalized difference vegetation index [NDVI]), biodiversity, and connectivity using an indicator species framework for the three most populous cities (Oakland, SF, and San Jose) in the Bay Area in three categories: greenspaces selected by Marxan as essential, greenspaces not selected by Marxan as essential, and all greenspaces. We found that greenspaces selected as essential were significantly larger in area and had a higher mean NDVI than non‐essential greenspaces. Indicator species richness was not significantly higher in greenspaces selected as essential in all three cities, while in SF, non‐essential and all greenspaces had significantly more biodiversity than essential greenspaces. Connectivity for three indicator species also significantly improved in all cities when incorporating non‐essential greenspaces. Our results demonstrate that including urban greenspaces can bolster regional conservation goals, supporting state and federal goals.