Colonization and extinction dynamics among the plant species at tree bases in Paris (France)

1. In cities, trees planted along streets could play an important ecological role for spontaneous plants growing at their bases. For example, these trees could represent corridors by potentially connecting large green spaces (e.g., parks, gardens), which allow species to move within the urban matrix. We considered sets of urban trees in 15 streets in Paris, France, as metapopulations for 15 plant species. Our objective was to determine the factors influencing the dynamics of colonization and extinction of populations based on the distance of the streets to green spaces and biological traits of each species. 2. Plant species in 1,324 tree bases of the Bercy District of Paris were surveyed annually from 2009 to 2015. For each species and each street, we used SPOMSIM software to identify the best‐fit metapopulation model between four models with different colonization and extinction functions: propagule rain model (PRM) and Levins’ model with or without rescue effect. 3. Results demonstrated that species more often conformed to the PRM in streets near green spaces, which suggested that green spaces could act as sources for the populations in those streets. Species with seeds with long‐term persistence more often conformed to the PRM, indicating that a soil seed bank helps species invade entire streets. Finally, a higher percentage of species with a short height conformed to models with a rescue effect, which indicated that those small species resisted the effects of weeding by the city technical services better than taller species. 4. Synthesis and applications. This study showed how biological traits of species and geography of the district determine the dynamics of plants in the streets, and these results may provide important information for biodiversity management in cities.