Biodiversity bolsters ecosystem services that cities depend on, including clean air, water, flood protection, aesthetics, and recreation. Yet in numerous ecological studies in the United States, dense urban areas have depleted species richness (number of species in an area), whereas suburbia represents the peak in biodiversity in metropolitan regions. The underlying driver of biodiversity in suburbia is the heterogeneity of the landscape at multiple scales, influenced in part by suburbia’s socio-economic heterogeneity.
