Abstract
Buildings structures and surfaces are explicitly being used to grow plants, and these “urban plantings” are generally designed for aesthetic value. Urban plantings also have the potential to contribute significant “ecological values” by increasing urban habitat for animals such as arthropods and by increasing plant productivity. In this study, we evaluated how the provision of these additional ecological values is affected by plant species richness; the availability of essential resources for plants, such as water, light, space; and soil characteristics. We sampled 33 plantings located on the exterior of three buildings in the urban center of Brisbane, Australia (subtropical climatic region) over 2, 6 week sampling periods characterized by different temperature and rainfall conditions. Plant cover was estimated as a surrogate for productivity as destructive sampling of biomass was not possible. We measured weekly light levels (photosynthetically active radiation), plant CO2 assimilation, soil CO2 efflux, and arthropod diversity. Differences in plant cover were best explained by a three-way interaction of plant species richness, management water regime and sampling period. As the richness of plant species increased in a planter, productivity and total arthropod richness also increased significantly—likely due to greater habitat heterogeneity and quality. Overall we found urban plantings can provide additional ecological values if essential resources are maintained within a planter such as water, light and soil temperature. Diverse urban plantings that are managed with these principles in mind can contribute to the attraction of diverse arthropod communities, and lead to increased plant productivity within a dense urban context.
Highlights
Rapid human concentration in cities, predicted to increase to 70% by 2030 (Unfpa, 2011), have led to great changes to ecosystems that erode biodiversity that in turn alters ecological processes vital to human well-being (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005)
Arthropod richness and plant productivity increased with plant richness and increased resource availability, showing that urban plantings can provide additional ecological values
We found that plant diversity and plant cover had a significant positive relationship, but we found that water regimes had a significant positive relationship with plant cover
Summary
Rapid human concentration in cities, predicted to increase to 70% by 2030 (Unfpa, 2011), have led to great changes to ecosystems that erode biodiversity that in turn alters ecological processes vital to human well-being (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Previous studies have focused on infrastructure and engineering related benefits that urban plantings can provide such as temperature reduction (Alexandri and Jones, 2008) and stormwater runoff reduction (Getter et al, 2007), but few studies have examined the use of urban plantings to mitigate climate change through CO2 sequestration and to provide refuge habitat for biodiversity (Hooper and Vitousek, 1998; Oberndorfer et al, 2007; Cook-Patton et al, 2011) To address these two key knowledge gaps, our study evaluates how the plants, soils and habitat provision of urban plantings change with plant species richness and resource availability
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