The urban tree of life: synthesizing relationships between body size and urban affinity

Urbanization is a major global driver of biodiversity change, with species responses to urban settings ranging from avoidance to exploitation. To better understand these responses, we conducted a global analysis of urban relative affinity inferred from occurrence data across more than 30,000 animal and plant species. Our synthesis showed a consistent pattern across taxa and biogeographic regions: many species are urban avoiders, while few thrive as urban exploiters—a pattern we coin “Species Urbanness Distribution”. We then assessed whether body size, an integrative ecological trait fundamental to space use, mobility, metabolism, and environmental sensitivity, showed consistent associations with urban affinity among species and across 371 taxonomic families. Analyses were conducted at the interspecific level and focused primarily on variation among taxonomic families (with an accompanying application to view results available here: <ext-link xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="https://globalecologyresearchgroup.github.io/body_size_results_visualization/">https://globalecologyresearchgroup.github.io/body_size_results_visualization/</ext-link> ). Larger body sizes were generally associated with greater urban affinity in plants compared to animals, though these size-affinity relationships showed considerable variability among families. Our findings highlight the heterogeneous relationship between body size and urban affinity across the tree of life, underscoring the importance of tailored strategies to support urban biodiversity. This research advances ecological understanding of urban filtering and provides a framework for guiding biodiversity-sensitive urban planning amid accelerating global urbanization.