Abstract
Van Heezik, Y. M., C. Freeman, S. Porter, and K. J. M. Dickinson. 2014. Native and exotic woody vegetation communities in domestic gardens in relation to social and environmental factors. Ecology and Society 19(4): 17. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06978-190417
Highlights
Vascular plant diversity in urban areas can be high, in private gardens or yards, which cover substantial areas within cities (Thompson et al 2003, Colding et al 2006, Godefroid and Koedam 2007, Mathieu et al 2007, Loram et al 2008a)
We investigate the woodiness of gardens, and focus on (1) the prevalence of native versus exotic woody plants and (2) the influence of characteristics of garden owners, the gardens, and their proximity to neighborhood green spaces to identify the degree to which these factors explain patterns in native and exotic woody species communities in entire gardens in southern temperate New Zealand
Even though we standardized the numbers of plants to account for different garden sizes, the vegetated area of the garden was present in all best matches in our analyses, indicating that larger gardens support higher woody species richness and characteristic communities of both exotic and native woody plants when compared to smaller gardens
Summary
Vascular plant diversity in urban areas can be high, in private gardens or yards, which cover substantial areas within cities (Thompson et al 2003, Colding et al 2006, Godefroid and Koedam 2007, Mathieu et al 2007, Loram et al 2008a). The structure, composition, and cover types of garden vegetation are likely to play critical roles in determining the quality and abundance of resources for wildlife, with informally managed green spaces such as private gardens and allotment gardens supporting greater abundance and different communities of species delivering ecosystem services such as pollination, seed dispersal, and insectivory (Andersson et al 2007). Urban plant communities typically include large numbers of introduced exotic (non-native) species, which may outnumber those that are native: for example, in UK gardens about 30% of garden plants were native and 70% exotic (Thompson et al 2003, Loram et al 2007) while in New Zealand, in the city of Auckland, northern North Island, 29% of front garden trees were recorded as native (Meurk et al 2009). Exotic species may be more tolerant of common urban stresses, such as compact and limited soil, are often fast-growing, and have showy flowers (Kareiva et al 2007)
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