RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Ecological homogenisation in North American urban yards: vegetation diversity, composition, and structure JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 061937 DO 10.1101/061937 A1 William D. Pearse A1 Jeannine Cavender-Bares A1 Sarah E. Hobbie A1 Meghan Avolio A1 Neil Bettez A1 Rinku Roy Chowdhury A1 Peter M. Groffman A1 Morgan Grove A1 Sharon J. Hall A1 James B. Heffernan A1 Jennifer Learned A1 Christopher Neill A1 Kristen C. Nelson A1 Diane E. Pataki A1 Benjamin L. Ruddell A1 Meredith E. Steele A1 Tara L. E. Trammell YR 2016 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/07/04/061937.abstract AB Urban ecosystems are widely hypothesised to be more ecologically homogeneous than natural ecosystems. We argue that urban plant communities assemble from a complex mix of horticultural and regional species pools and thus evaluate the homogenisation hypothesis by comparing cultivated and spontaneously occurring urban vegetation to natural area vegetation across seven major US cities. Urban yards were homogenised across cities in terms of their diversity, composition, and structure. First, cultivated and spontaneous yard flora had higher numbers of species than did natural areas but similar phylogenetic diversity, indicating that yard species were drawn from a relatively small number of lineages. Second, yards were compositionally more similar across regions than were natural areas. Finally, vegetation structure, specifically cultivated tree density, was less variable in yards than natural areas across cities. Biodiversity homogenisation likely reflects similar horticultural source pools, homeowner preferences, management practices, and environmental filters across US cities.