Biodiversity In Gardens Research Articles

“Two million gardens could be the biggest National Park in Ireland”: pathways to nature in domestic gardens

ABSTRACT Domestic gardens often comprise the largest land use in urban spaces. Little is known, about their potential to enhance biodiversity and re-nature urban areas. This exploratory study aimed to understand potential pathways to promoting nature and native biodiversity in domestic gardens from an environmental psychology perspective. The approach involved a preliminary pre-recruitment questionnaire (n = 90) and four qualitative focus groups (n = 12) with residents in Dublin, Ireland. Key questions explored emotions relating to gardens, opinions about nature and biodiversity, as well as aspects which encourage or discourage enhancing biodiversity in gardens. Four themes were uncovered: 1) individual emotional and experiential co-benefits from nature in gardens by avoiding disconnection, 2) the garden setting as a nature facilitator through configurations and capabilities despite perceptions of gardening ‘work’, 3) social gardening identities embracing wilder garden types and collective approaches overcoming social judgement and shame 4) potential for nature through learning infrastructure to align with nature experiences and narratives and efficacy of actions for nature. The study concludes that transformational change could reframe Ireland’s two million gardens as its biggest national/nature park through a more psychological approach to biodiverse gardens to appeal to different social gardening identities and garden types.

Visible Garden Biodiversity Is Associated with Noticing Nature and Nature Connectedness

Visible Garden Biodiversity Is Associated with Noticing Nature and Nature Connectedness

Relationships between nature connectedness, biodiversity of private gardens, and mental well-being during the Covid-19 lockdown

Private gardens have an enormous impact on urban biodiversity, making individual householder behavior critical to the conservation and enhancement of biodiversity in urban areas. Nature connectedness is considered to be a prerequisite for proenvironmental behavior, but how it manifests in private gardens is largely unexplored. Nature connectedness has also been found to be associated with several well-being dimensions. The present study investigates the associations between nature connectedness, biodiversity of private gardens, and mental well-being during the Covid-19 lockdown, a stressful period in many people’s lives. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to analyze data from an online survey of private gardeners in two cities, one in Germany and one in New Zealand, in May 2020, approximately two months after the beginning of the first Covid-19 lockdown. Garden characteristics explained a significant amount of variance in depression symptoms during the Covid- 19 lockdown. In light of rising pressures on urban green spaces, the findings point to the importance of private garden qualities for mental health and well-being. Nature connectedness emerged as a significant predictor of feature richness, a measure of the heterogeneity of habitats that support wildlife, and plant growth form richness in people’s gardens in both city samples. Nature connectedness was also a significant predictor of the extent to which people experienced positive emotions during the Covid-19 lockdown but not negative emotions and depression symptoms. Our results suggest that nature connectedness can provide benefits for both the environment and people through its positive association with private garden biodiversity and positive emotions.

Tackling the invisibility of abeyant resistance to mainstream biodiversity conservation: Social movement theory and botanic garden agency

For more than three decades now, botanic gardens have been re-inventing themselves as institutions of plant biodiversity conservation. In this context a growing number of botanic gardens around the world are embracing social roles in pursuit of plant conservation. This reflects the advent of a socio-environmental movement within botanic gardens comprised mainly of public engagement/education staff who promote the management of people-plant relationships as the object of conservation, and as an alternative to mainstream approaches based on the governance of objectified ‘plant-natures’. Although historically social movement theories have focused on social conflict, recent developments in this field offer analytical options that productively highlight the politics of non-conflictual struggle. These developments facilitate the analysis of novel networks and practices of biodiversity conservation at botanic gardens. Building on this literature, this article analyses an original conservation movement at botanic gardens as emergent (at elementary stages of development) and abeyant (yet to be formally organized and/or claimed), which is expanding globally—albeit within the context of the structural constraints that these institutions face as burgeoning sites of environmental innovation. The article thus widens the scope of conservation studies to include the world of botanical garden biodiversity conservation, its political engagements, and the heterogeneity of constituencies it encompasses.

Biodiversity in my (back)yard: towards a framework for citizen engagement in exploring biodiversity and ecosystem services in residential gardens

Cultural landscapes generate many ecological values. Much of the cultural landscape exists as private or semi-private domestic gardens. These domestic gardens are hidden treasures of information on small-scale urban landscape design, urban biodiversity and the relation between citizens and their direct living environments. In this paper, an indicator framework is proposed that aims to engage citizens in experiencing and exploring biodiversity and ecosystem services in their own domestic outdoor spaces. By integrating ecological and cultural factors related to garden biodiversity the framework intends to fill a gap in existing research on domestic gardens that has until now either focused on ecological factors, or on preferences of garden owners. The framework has been developed by analysing pictures of front-yards in Phoenix (AZ, USA) and Maastricht (the Netherlands). With the BIMBY [Biodiversity in My (Back) Yard] framework we aim to contribute to an inclusive trans-disciplinary and transformational dialogue on ecosystem services, green infrastructure and biodiversity conservation in the context of the sustainable development of cities.

Garden Size, Householder Knowledge, and Socio-Economic Status Influence Plant and Bird Diversity at the Scale of Individual Gardens

Domestic gardens collectively cover substantial areas within cities and play an important role in supporting urban biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. The extent of their contribution to urban biodiversity is ultimately determined by the attitudes, motivations, and practices of their owners. We identified variables characterizing individual householders and their properties that explained variation in perennial plant and avian species richness and plant diversity among 55 gardens in New Zealand. The size of the vegetated area was most important in explaining bird and plant diversity, independent of property size. Also important and positively associated with plant richness were socio-economic status and ability to discriminate between native and exotic species. Median housing age and neighborhood green space were less important. Contrary to expectations, better educated householders who demonstrated pro-environmental orientation (NEP) did not necessarily have gardens with greater plant diversity, however, people with higher NEP scores tended to have gardens with more structurally complex vegetation. Similar variables were important in explaining native and exotic species richness, but higher exotic plant diversity was associated with older people with smaller properties of lower value. Avian species richness increased primarily with vegetated area, but also the areas of beds and hedges. We demonstrate that although householder knowledge is an important determinant of garden biodiversity, vegetated area is most important. Promoting urban garden biodiversity requires that larger vegetated properties be supported and encouraged, and that planners should consider biodiversity when formulating policies concerning garden size, property size, and consents that may result in a progressive increase in the proportion of built over/paved areas.

HIV and orientation of subsistence and commercial home gardens in rural Ghana: Crop composition, crop diversity and food security

An empirical study was conducted to explore differences and similarities in biodiversity in subsistence and commercial home gardens of HIV-positive and HIV-negative rural households in the Eastern Region of Ghana and their significance inhousehold food security. Data were obtained through a household and home garden survey of a purposive sample of 32 HIV-positive and a random sample of 48 HIV-negative rural households and through in-depth interviews. A higher proportion of species common to all four home garden types consisted of food crops: vegetables, staples and fruits. In HIV-positive households, commercial home gardens were significantly larger, had significantly more species and individual plants, more perennial food crops and more species that were harvested all year round and evenness was lower, but there was no significant difference in species diversity compared with subsistence home gardens. Significantly, more HIV-positive and HIV-negative households with a commercial home garden consumed a staple crop cultivated in the home garden in the 24-h period prior to the survey than HIV-positive households with subsistence home gardens. Rural households with HIV that manage commercial home gardens cultivate a dual purpose home garden which supplies subsistence food and also provides cash income; such households may have better food security than households that cultivate subsistence home gardens. Key words: Shannon-Wiener index, dual purpose, home garden biodiversity, evenness.

Urban domestic gardens (XIII): Composition of the bryophyte and lichen floras, and determinants of species richness

Private, residential gardens form a substantial proportion of the undeveloped land in urban areas. Evaluating their role in supporting biodiversity is crucial to (i) predicting which plant and animal species can persist in towns and cities, (ii) understanding the regional impacts of urbanisation, and (iii) guiding sympathetic garden management by owners. To obtain baseline information on a poorly-studied component of garden biodiversity, we measured the size and composition of the cryptogam assemblages in 61 domestic gardens in the city of Sheffield, UK. A total of 67 bryophyte and 77 lichen taxa were recorded. Bryophytes ranged from 3 to 24 species per garden, with a mean richness of 11.3 species; lichens ranged from 2 to 30, with a mean of 14.9 species. Stone substrates supported the highest lichen richness, although minor substrates contributed unique species. Just over one fifth of bryophyte species were recorded in grass lawns, and these were more widespread than those of other habitats. Most cryptogams were scarce, with around one quarter of both bryophytes and lichens occurring in single gardens, and only 10% were found in more than half of the gardens. Garden area – correlated with substrate richness – and garden altitude were the only two factors explaining variation in cryptogam richness (bryophytes 39.1%, lichens 32.4%). Positive correlations existed among bryophyte, lichen and vascular plant richness, and these were only partially mediated by the effect of garden area. Therefore the opportunity remains for garden owners to support cryptogam richness, the most effective action being to enhance substrate diversity.

Interactive effects of HIV/AIDS and household headship determine home garden diversity in the Eastern Region of Ghana

Home gardens are important for enhancing food and nutritional security for HIV/AIDS-afflicted rural households through dietary diversity. Female-headed households may depend on home gardens more than average households to supply and supplement the household's diet when labour is constrained for field cropping. This paper compares household characteristics, dietary diversity, labour allocated to crop husbandry and home garden biodiversity amongst 22 HIV/AIDS-afflicted female-headed households, 15 non-HIV/AIDS-afflicted female-headed, 10 HIV/AIDS-afflicted dual-headed and 33 non-HIV/AIDS-afflicted dual-headed households in rural communities in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Information on household characteristics and labour allocation to home garden management was obtained through a cross-sectional survey and in-depth interviews. Dietary diversity score was estimated for each household based on a 24-hour qualitative dietary recall. Plant species in each home garden were recorded. HIV/ AIDS affliction did not affect home garden diversity but afflicted households had more on-farm sources of income and a higher dietary diversity and allocated more adult labour to home garden activities than non-afflicted households. Dual-headed households had more diversity in the home garden and allocated more adult male labour to the home garden than female-headed households. Statistically significant interactions between HIV/AIDS affliction and headship were observed for Shannon-Wiener index, number of crop species, number of annual crop species and number of root and tuber crop species in the home gardens: there were no headship effects when households were afflicted whereas dual-headed households had higher values than female-headed households in non-afflicted households. HIV/AIDS-afflicted households had significantly more annual crop species and more root and tuber crop species than non-afflicted households for female-headed households, whereas there were no significant differences for dual-headed households. Faced with confinement to the homestead in caregiving and by the obligation to ensure household food and nutritional security, HIV/AIDS-afflicted households spent more (female] labour on home garden management than non-afflicted households to produce crops for sustenance and dietary diversity.

Urban domestic gardens (I): Putting small‐scale plant diversity in context

Abstract. As part of a larger survey of biodiversity in gardens in Sheffield, UK, we examined the composition and diversity of the flora in two 1‐m2 quadrats in each of 60 gardens, and compared this with floristic data from semi‐natural habitats in central England and derelict urban land in Birmingham, UK. Garden quadrats contained more than twice as many taxa as those from any other habitat type. Ca. 33 % of garden plants were natives and 67 % aliens, mainly from Europe and Asia. A higher proportion of garden aliens originated from Asia and New Zealand than in the UK alien flora as a whole; 18 of the 20 most frequent plants in garden quadrats were natives, mostly common weeds. Garden quadrats showed no evidence of ‘nestedness’, i.e. a tendency for scarce species to be confined to the highest diversity quadrats. Conversely, species in all semi‐natural and derelict land data sets were significantly nested. Compared to a range of semi‐natural habitats, species richness of garden quadrats was intermediate, and strikingly similar to the richness of derelict land quadrats. Although species accumulation curves for all other habitats showed signs of saturation at 120 quadrats, gardens did not. Correlations between Sørensen similarity index and physical distance were insignificant for all habitat types, i.e. there was little evidence that physical distance played any part in structuring the composition of the quadrats in any of the data sets. However, garden quadrats were much less similar to each other than quadrats from semi‐natural habitats or derelict land.

Urban domestic gardens (I): Putting small-scale plant diversity in context

Abstract As part of a larger survey of biodiversity in gardens in Sheffield, UK, we examined the composition and diversity of the flora in two 1-m2 quadrats in each of 60 gardens, and compared this with floristic data from semi-natural habitats in central England and derelict urban land in Birmingham, UK. Garden quadrats contained more than twice as many taxa as those from any other habitat type. Ca. 33 % of garden plants were natives and 67 % aliens, mainly from Europe and Asia. A higher proportion of garden aliens originated from Asia and New Zealand than in the UK alien flora as a whole; 18 of the 20 most frequent plants in garden quadrats were natives, mostly common weeds. Garden quadrats showed no evidence of ‘nestedness’, i.e. a tendency for scarce species to be confined to the highest diversity quadrats. Conversely, species in all semi-natural and derelict land data sets were significantly nested. Compared to a range of semi-natural habitats, species richness of garden quadrats was intermediate, an...