Urban Landscape Ecology: Past, Present, and Future - Landscape Ecology for Sustainable Environment and Culture - page 45

Fig. 3.7 Quantification of the spatiotemporal patterns of urbanization in the Phoenix metropol-
itan region, Arizona, USA, using landscape pattern metrics (modified from Wu 2004 ; Wu et al.
2011a , b ). A large number of landscape metrics have been used to characterize urbanization
patterns, and seven of them are shown here
on the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research project
(CAPLTER). Among many other studies using these methods are those at Balti-
more, Beijing, and Shenzhen (Fig. 3.1 ).
The second component is focused on ''impacts studies'' that investigate how
urbanization affects biodiversity, population and community processes, ecosystem
functions, and ecosystem services. Most studies on cities that have been carried out
by bio-ecologists and environmental scientists belong to this category, and several
recent topics have reviewed these studies (Carreiro et al. 2008 ; McDonnell et al.
2009 ; Niemela 2011 ). It is well documented that urbanization may decrease native
species richness but increase the number of exotic species; increase landscape-level