Establishment of native plants increases perception of ecosystem services in community-organized greenspaces

Background/Question/Methods

Urban greenspaces can serve as vital refuges of biodiversity within cities. The biotic composition of such greenspaces is often determined by human influence, and requires management by stewards to preserve diverse assemblages of species. Stewardship activity may be encouraged by perceptions of the ecosystem services generated by greenspaces, including cultural, regulating, provisioning or supporting services. Due to ecological processes such as niche complementarity and trait-function relationships, biodiversity is a key driver of the ecosystem services that flow from greenspaces. We hypothesize that these relationships lead to a positive social-ecological feedback loop, wherein increasing greenspace diversity yields more ecosystem services, promoting greater stewardship activity that in turn increases greenspace diversity. To assess this hypothesis, we conducted vegetation and social surveys of twenty-three community-organized greenspaces sponsored by Keep Indianapolis Beautiful in Indianapolis, IN. Vegetation surveys included plant species richness and composition. Social surveys assessed perception of ecosystem services and stewardship of greenspaces, and were administered to residents within 400m of each greenspace.

Results/Conclusions

Preliminary results show that greenspaces vary in vegetative diversity, and that the richness of native species planted when the site was established was positively correlated with perception of some ecosystem services. Stewardship activity, however, was not correlated with measures of vegetation diversity. Further work, including exploration of covarying factors (such as greenspace size, presence of signage and other structural elements) and manipulative experiments, is needed to elucidate the connection between perception of ecosystem services and stewardship activity.