Distribution pattern and composition difference of urban spontaneous plants of multi-mountainous city

Rapid urbanization poses a threat to regional habitat maintenance and biological conservation, while spontaneous plants provide a beneficial opportunity for sustainable urban landscape and biodiversity conservation. However, it is still unclear how the patterns and composition of spontaneous plant diversity are affected by the urban environment. Here, spontaneous plants was investigated in the built-up area of Guiyang, capital city of southwest China to explore the diversity characteristics and distribution pattern, and the response of diversity and species composition difference of spontaneous plant to urban environment conditions by generalized linear model and generalized dissimilarity model. The results showed that: (1) The species richness and Shannon-Wiener index of spontaneous plants in the study area decreased with the increase of urbanization gradient, and there was no obvious urban-rural gradient pattern in the distribution of spontaneous plants; (2) Construction age, slope and land use Shannon diversity index were significant factors affecting alpha and beta diversity of spontaneous plant. In addition, species richness was significantly responsive to elevation and population change. (3) Environmental biological and abiotic factors were stronger drivers of alpha than beta diversity, and could explain 11 % and 15 % of the variation in species richness and Shannon-Wiener index, but only 5.9 % of the variation in Bray-Curtis index. These findings help to deepen our understanding of the community evolution and ecological processes of spontaneous plants in the process of urbanization, and have important implications for urban managers and planners to realize eco-friendly cities and urban rewilding practices. • The pattern of spontaneous plants diversity has obvious urbanization gradient changes. • Spontaneous plants α and β have similar responses to urban environmental factors. • SHDI and Construction age are decisive factors affecting the diversity of a and β.