OOS 37-3 - Linking functional traits, socio-ecological filters and ecosystem services in urban areas

In urban areas, green infrastructure provides ecosystem services fundamental to supporting urban dwellers' quality of life, health, and overall well-being. This infrastructure is supported by urban biodiversity and its specific characteristics and mechanisms linked to different functions – the functional traits. However, the complexity of urban systems can affect biodiversity at the functional level, with implications on ecosystem services delivery. Therefore, to maximize the functional performance of biodiversity in urban areas, it is important to understand both the ecological and social factors that can affect local biodiversity at the trait level, acting as filters of traits’ phenotypic expression. To this end, we have developed a new trait-based conceptual framework – the Social-Ecological Traits Framework - centered around the socio-ecological filters that potentially drive the distribution of functional traits in urban landscapes, describing how these processes can occur, and the possible consequences for ecosystem services supply. For a clearer understanding of these filters, we categorize them into the ecological filters of abiotic and biotic dimensions, and the social filters of socio-cultural, governance, and economic dimensions, which often interact. To provide a first approach to the operationalization of the framework, we apply its rationale to a specific case study that considers the functional diversity of street trees in Lisbon (Portugal) and its links to ecological and social drivers, that can potentially act as filters of biodiversity. Understanding the ongoing recognition of the value of green infrastructure among decision-makers and stakeholders responsible for public policies, we believe that this framework can serve as a basis to support management and planning decisions for maximizing ecosystem services in different urban contexts experiencing multiple types of global environmental change.