Impacts of native plant-dominated landscaping approaches on arthropod food webs in new residential developments.

As urbanized areas expand globally, it is important to identify strategies to conserve arthropods in developing urban and residential landscapes. Native plant-dominated landscaping has been proposed as one such strategy. However, the degree to which this landscaping approach sustains resource availability for arthropods and higher trophic levels is unclear. Here we test the efficacy of native plant landscaping in the context of arthropod conservation in an ongoing 37,000-home development project southeast of Orlando, FL, a rapidly developing region. The University of Florida, the UF/IFAS Center for Land Use Efficiency, The Nature Conservancy-Florida Chapter, and the University of Central Florida are collaborating to inform the overall sustainability of this project. Eleven turf-free model landscapes comprised of 75% native plants were installed in the development allowing us to compare these landscapes to a nearby conventional turf-dominated landscapes. We hypothesize that relative to yards having conventional turf-dominated landscaping that yards dominated by native plants will (H1) confer greater resources for higher trophic levels and (H2) exhibit greater levels of food web stability. To test these hypotheses, we will quantify (1) floral and fruit abundance, and arthropod biomass, as metrics of resource availability and (2) the abundance and diversity of arthropod predators as evidence of food-web stability. Responses will be modeled as a function of the landscaping styles. Our findings will improve understanding of the conservation potential of native plant landscaping in new development projects, particularly its effects on the establishment of arthropod communities, resources for higher trophic levels, arthropod food web stability.