Evidence item

The results revealed that dominant species diversity was higher in less populated cities with higher edge density and higher green-to-impervious ratios, suggesting that fragmented urban green spaces promote habitat heterogeneity, whereas high human population density negatively affects ant communities. Additionally, hotter cities harbour a taxonomically less diverse ant fauna, suggesting that cities may filter for certain taxonomic groups with higher thermal tolerance. On the other hand, no effects of the considered environmental variables were found on species richness.