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Millipede communities in green urban areas are dominated by alien species in Montevideo, Uruguay

A. Carbonell,Paula Ferrari-Alvarez,Mikaela Cúparo,Lucía Puppo,Carolina Rojas-Buffet

Published 2025 in Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT Urbanization is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss. Urban green patches could function as habitats for a large number of species. In arthropods, urbanization affects their life cycles, but little is known from the Neotropical region. Millipedes work as a good model to study urbanization due to their important ecological role and specificity of habitat. Here, the seasonality and diversity of millipedes in three urban green patches in Montevideo, Uruguay, were analyzed. Samplings were carried out in three urban patches with different degrees of urbanization: Low Urbanized Area (LUA), Moderately Urbanized Area (MUA) and Highly Urbanized Area (HUA). A total of 1987 millipedes from seven species and six families (Julidae, Blaniulidae, Paradoxosomatidae, Polydesmidae, Pyrgodesmidae and Polyxenidae) were found. Five of these species are alien to the Neotropical region. Differences in the species composition between the HUA and the MUA-LUA complex were found, with HUA and MUA being the most diverse areas and LUA the least diverse area. However, no pattern was found among seasons, even though species are discriminated between seasons and areas. Our results show how urban green sites are safeguarding mostly alien biodiversity of millipedes. Better management in urban areas could benefit native species of millipedes in Uruguay.

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