Plants in Urban Landscapes (Environments)

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Ecology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2025) | Viewed by 1594

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Centro de Investigação LEAF (Linking Landscape, Environment, Agriculture and Food), Instituto Superior de Agronomia (School of Agriculture), Universidade de Lisboa (University of Lisbon), Tapada da Ajuda, 1340-017 Lisboa, Portugal
Interests: phytosociology; herbarium; plant ecology; ethnobotany; ornamental plants; conservation biology; medicinal plants and herbs; biodiversity and conservation; invasive species; horticulture

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Centro de Ecologia Aplicada Professor Baeta Neves (CEABN/ InBIO), Instituto Superior de Agronomia (School of Agriculture), Universidade de Lisboa (University of Lisbon), Lisboa, Portugal
Interests: landscape architecture; ornamental plants; biodiversity & conservation; urban forest; ecosystem services; botanical gardens; urban planning

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Guest Editor
Research Center LEAF (Linking Landscape, Environment, Agriculture and Food), Associate Laboratory TERRA, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
Interests: evapotranspiration; plant water requirements; irrigation; deficit irrigation; plant water stress; green infrastructure water management
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Natural and planted vegetation play a very important role as source of various ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration and biodiversity. The accumulation of garbage of various kinds, in the vicinity of houses or their rubble or ruins, on the walls and roofs of old houses, on the edges of pavements sidewalks, provide a large amount of nutrients, favouring the occurrence of nitrophilous vegetation. This type of vegetation is not considered to be of conservation value, but it may have other functions that need to be discussed. In the most thermophilic places, perennial nitrophilous communities of neophytes are becoming more and more frequent, so what role do these plants play in cities? Urban kitchen gardens are becoming more and more common not only on the outskirts of urban centres, but also inside them, often reduced to spaces such as balconies and terraces. Will the food grown there be of good quality? How can terrace gardening be done? And will the so-called weeds be of any use? Gardens, including botanical gardens most of which exist in cities, contribute greatly to air quality, plant education and biodiversity conservation. It is interesting, for ex., to know what plants were or are present in the gardens and how the collections evolved, as well as which world regions were represented. These are just a few of the examples of the role of plants in urban centres, among others that should be addressed, but which must reach inhabitants and users, as well as producers and decision-makers, in a scientifically proven way, through the articles accepted for publication in this volume dedicated to plants in urban environments.

Dr. Maria Dalila Espírito-Santo
Prof. Dr. Ana Luísa Soares
Prof. Dr. Teresa Afonso do Paço
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • urban vegetation
  • biodiversity conservation
  • urban environments
  • botanical gardens
  • planted vegetation
  • natural vegetation
  • plant ecology

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 1408 KiB  
Article
Reservoirs of Biodiversity: Gardens and Parks in Portugal Show High Diversity of Ivy Species
by Pedro Talhinhas, João da Cunha Ferreira, Ana Paula Ramos, Ana Luísa Soares and Dalila Espírito-Santo
Plants 2025, 14(16), 2486; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14162486 - 11 Aug 2025
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Abstract
Urban parks and gardens are important in multiple ways, but they are often mostly made of exotic species with little biodiversity value. Surveys conducted in public and private gardens and parks across diverse Portuguese cities reveal a surprisingly high level of ivy species [...] Read more.
Urban parks and gardens are important in multiple ways, but they are often mostly made of exotic species with little biodiversity value. Surveys conducted in public and private gardens and parks across diverse Portuguese cities reveal a surprisingly high level of ivy species diversity, even when there is no apparent ornamental value in growing multiple species. The analysis of 499 samples from Mainland Portugal, Azores, and Madeira shows that in Madeira, the endemic H. maderensis co-occurs with exotic species; in Mainland Portugal, H. hibernica is more common in the centre and north (49% of samples) and H. iberica in the south (50% of samples), following their distribution in nature, but co-occur with exotic species (mostly H. helix, H. algeriensis, H. maroccana, and H. canariensis). Often, different species are cultivated side by side in the same garden, thus depicting these gardens as hidden reservoirs of biodiversity and, simultaneously, as potential sources for biological invasion. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plants in Urban Landscapes (Environments))
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22 pages, 2637 KiB  
Article
Vegetation-Specific Cooling Responses to Compact Urban Development: Evidence from a Landscape-Based Analysis in Nanjing, China
by Qianyu Sun, Daicong Li, Xiaolan Tang and Yujie Ren
Plants 2025, 14(16), 2457; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14162457 - 8 Aug 2025
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Abstract
The urban heat island (UHI) effect has emerged as a growing ecological challenge in compact urban environments. Although urban vegetation plays a vital role in mitigating thermal extremes, its cooling performance varies depending on vegetation type and urban morphological context. This study explores [...] Read more.
The urban heat island (UHI) effect has emerged as a growing ecological challenge in compact urban environments. Although urban vegetation plays a vital role in mitigating thermal extremes, its cooling performance varies depending on vegetation type and urban morphological context. This study explores the extent to which compact urban development—quantified using the Mixed-use and Intensive Development (MIXD) index—modulates the cooling responses of different vegetation types in Nanjing, China. A combination of landscape metrics, regression-based interaction models, and XGBoost with SHAP analysis is employed to uncover vegetation-specific and structure-sensitive cooling effects. The results indicate that densely planted trees exhibit reduced cooling effectiveness in compact areas, where spatial clustering and fragmentation tend to intensify UHI effects, particularly during nighttime. In contrast, scattered trees are found to maintain more stable cooling performance across varying degrees of urban compactness, while low-lying vegetation demonstrates limited thermal regulation capacity. Critical thresholds of MIXD (approximately 28 for UHI area and 37 for UHI intensity) are identified, indicating a nonlinear modulation of green space performance. These findings underscore the importance of vegetation structure and spatial configuration in shaping urban microclimates and offer mechanistic insights into plant–environment interactions under conditions of increasing urban density. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plants in Urban Landscapes (Environments))
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