Trait-Based Predictions of Mammal Adaptation to Urban Environments Under Accelerating Climate and Land Use Change

Abstract

The two are rapid urbanization and climate change, which pose a threat to biodiversity in Sub-Saharan
Africa. Accra is a megacity in the Coastal Savannah Ecological Zone of Ghana that has seen an 800
% expansion of built-up regions during the past 30 years, with devastating consequences of habitat
fracture. This paper uses a trait-based approach to forecast the way accelerating land-use
transformation and changing bioclimatic situations sieve populations of native small mammals. Based
on a mixture of Capture-Mark-Recapture of Urban Green Areas (UGAs), i.e., botanical gardens and
remnant forest fragments, the study assesses the prediction ability of morphological, ecological, and
life-history features on the predictability of an area. The results of Multi-Species Occupancy Models
(MSOM) and Phylogenetic Generalized Least Squares (PGLS) provide some statistical insights in that
the interaction between the body mass and dietary breadth explains the most variance in the urban
occupancy. Findings show that there is a tremendous change in the composition of the communities
through the filtering of the environment. The urban matrix is dominated by species that have fast life
cycles, are generalists, and have high behavioral plasticity, especially Mastomys erythroleucus and
Crocidura olivieri, which have a statistically significantly higher likelihood of survival. On the other
hand, habitat specialists such as Grammomys poensis have a steep decrease in occupancy as patch
size decreases below a critical number of 1.5 hectares. Morphometric analysis also indicates that urban
populations usually have decreased body mass than rural conspecifics, with the Urban Heat Island
(UHI) effect having a strong negative relationship with physiological state. These results show that
there is a tendency towards biotic homogenization with a few anthropophilic winners substituting a
wide variety of native assemblages. The study offers a critical evidence-based literature on the notion
of wildlife-friendly urban planning, particularly that its connectivity is crucial in the conservation of
operational diversity in thriving urban cities in the tropics.