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ViewAttendees 4

Program Symposium

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

Science Policy

Insect Conservation in Cities: Opportunities for Aligning Entomology, People, and Policy

Enhancing invertebrate communities through sustainable landscaping practices in a new suburban development

Tuesday, November 7, 2023
1:50 PM – 2:05 PM ET
Location: Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Chesapeake 7-9
In-Person
Residential landscapes are now the most rapidly expanding land cover type in the United States, resulting in the replacement of natural and agricultural habitats with landscaped areas having homogenous vegetation composition and structure. The irrigation, fertilizer, and pesticides used to manage this landscaping further impact water quality, quantity, and already declining arthropod communities. Here we report on an academic-municipal-private-NGO collaboration aimed at protecting water resources in an ongoing 37,000-home development southwest of Orlando, Florida, a rapidly developing region. The key water-conservation strategies being explored are turf-free, native planted-dominated landscaping and soil compost amendments. Two on-site studies are revealing the benefits of these water-conservation strategies on arthropod communities. The first study, a manipulative experiment aiming to identify strategies to establish native plants in degraded development soils, has determined that amending soils organic matter reduces irrigation needs by 75%, while enhancing floral production and the abundance of pollinators and ground-dwelling arthropods. The second study quantifies differences in arthropod communities between yards having native-dominated, turf-free landscaping and yards in a nearby development having conventional turf-dominated landscaping. Similarly, we are seeing reduced irrigation needs accompanied by increased arthropod abundance and diversity. We are now working both to confirm these benefits and to determine the degree to which they are indicative of more stable arthropod communities. Our findings are informing future landscaping decisions and marketing aimed at increasing public acceptance of water-conserving native landscaping. These findings also show that separate landscaping conservation goals are not mutually exclusive and can be met through integrative approaches.