Urban green spaces provide us with recreation, education and aesthetic enjoyment. However, as urban areas develop and sprawl toward suburban areas, the nature of biodiversity in urban green- spaces changes. As urbanization and habitat fragmentation are the dominant factors that influence urban biodiversity, we are interested in assessing their impacts on plant species diversity in Northeast Ohio. Cleveland Metroparks is ideal for such study because the park surrounds the City of Cleveland forming an “Emerald Necklace” occupying 8093 hectares in 14 reservations. Some reservations are fragmented by roads, residential buildings and other urban developments while others are too narrow as wide as only 15 meters. We plan to sample 900 geospatially referenced randomly selected 10 m X 20 m plots in these reservations. We have completed sampling of 74 plots in eight reservations in the summer of 2001. We collected data on tree and understory species diversity, tree diameter at the breast height, soil temperature, soil moisture, canopy cover, light intensity, soil pH, vegetation, litter cover, wet and dry weight of litter, and human visitation index. A total of 290 plant species was encountered in eight reservations. The plant species richness ranged from 36 in 5 plots from the Mill Stream reservation to 127 in 28 plots from the Brecksville reservation. Shannon diversity indices ranged from 1.3 for tree species and 2.33 for understory species at the South Chagrin reservation to 2.4 for tree species and 3.9 for understory species at the Brecksville reservation. Although there was no relationship of human visitations with the Shannon diversity indices of tree species diversity, a positive relationship was found between them for understory species suggesting that humans may play a role in the dispersal of understory species.

Key words: biodiversity, emerald nacklace, Shannon diversity, species richness, understory species