Response and sensitivity of urban plants with different seed dispersal modes

Spontaneous plants, those not planted by people or remaining from before urbanization, are vital to urban biodiversity. Their distribution in urban systems is affected by seed dispersal mode

and environmental factors such as natural dispersal limitation and habitat quality factors. We assessed four seed dispersal modes in 16 cities in Yunnan province, the most biodiverse

province in China. Autochory, in which plants eject seeds or otherwise power their seeds’ dispersal, was the dominant seed dispersal mode of urban spontaneous plants in most cities (13 out

of 16), whereas hydrochory, or passive seed dispersal by water, was the least frequent. Our research showed spontaneous plants in urban ecosystems adopt convergent strategies to address

environmental stressors. The number of urban plants was significantly higher in colder and more-humid climates but decreased with increased dispersal limitations and reduced habitat quality.

Sensitivities to these factors varied, with autochory especially sensitive to dispersal limitation and hydrochory sensitive to habitat quality and climate. Findings suggest improving

habitat quality and creating green corridors would enhance conservation efforts for urban biodiversity.

The data and codes that support the findings of this study are publicly available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.27292317.v1 (ref. 67). Original photographs, collection

numbers and scanned images of the herbarium specimens created during our study (currently housed at Kunming Institute of Botany) can also be obtained from the corresponding author upon

request.

The code that supports the findings of this study is available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.27292317.v1 (ref. 67).

We thank X. Yu from Qiannan Normal University for Nationalities for helping with the species identification. This research was funded by Major Program for Basic Research Project of Yunnan

Province (L.D., 202101BC070002), the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (L.D., 2015FY210200), ECNU Academic Innovation Promotion Program for Excellent Doctoral Students (Z.G.,

YBNLTS2019), and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Y.P., 2023YFF1305800). Y.P. acknowledges the funds from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (E429S10101) and the

Innovation Team Project of Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2023CXTD03).

Global Institute for Urban and Regional Sustainability, Tiantong National Forest Ecosystem Observation and Research Station, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China

Normal University, Shanghai, China

Key Laboratory of Wetland Ecology and Environment, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China

State Key Laboratory of Black Soils Conservation and Utilization, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China

School of Landscape Architecture, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, China

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Kunming University, Kunming, China

Institute of Science and Engineering of Ecology in Arid and Semi-arid Areas, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an, China

Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, Nelson, New Zealand

Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands

Z.G.: field survey, data collection, analysis, interpretation and drafting the manuscript; Y.Y., T.W., M.Z., T.X., Y.H.: field survey, collecting data and revising the manuscript; E.C., K.S.

and Y.P.: data analysis, interpretation of data, conception and revising the manuscript critically; K.S. and L.D.: funding, conception, revising the manuscript and final approval of the

manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Nature Cities thanks Ádám Lovas-Kiss, Rafael Zenni and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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