Institutional and individual drivers of yard vegetative structure and composition in the American residential macrosystem
Topics: Environment
, Land Use and Land Cover Change
, Urban and Regional Planning
Keywords: governance, households, institutions, plants, residential land use, urban ecology
Session Type: Virtual Poster
Day: Wednesday
Session Start / End Time: 4/7/2021 01:30 PM (Pacific Time (US & Canada)) - 4/7/2021 02:45 PM (Pacific Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 52
Authors:
Aaron M Grade, Clark University
Rinku Roy Chowdhury, Clark University
Peter M Groffman, City University of New York
Carlos Dobler-Morales, Clark University
Dexter Locke, USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station
Jeannine Cavender-Bares, University of Minnesota
Neil D Bettez, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
J. Morgan Grove, USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station
Sharon J. Hall, Arizona State University
James B Heffernan, Duke University
Abstract
As the world urbanizes, resulting shifts in land use throughout urban gradients drive concerns about “ecological homogenization” at broad scales. Urban residential yards are the sites of important environmental decision-making by households, with implications for urban flora and fauna as well as ecosystem services such as pollination and dispersal. Yard management is shaped by household characteristics as well as broader-scale institutions. We present here the results of collaborative research that links household survey data, parcel-scale land cover and plant species composition in yards across six U.S. cities. We evaluate how residents manage yard vegetation in relation to their sociodemographic characteristics and institutional factors. We then trace management decisions to vegetative outcomes. Initial results indicate that household factors, and institutions such as homeowners associations (HOAs) and neighborhood associations (NAs), influence land cover in residential parcels. Furthermore, we find that households’ yard management choices influence the proportion of spontaneous versus cultivated and native versus nonnative plants, as well as plants with “showy” flowers, all possible indicators of quality pollinator habitat. Despite concerns regarding a vegetative homogenization of the American residential macrosystem at the continental scale, important differences in institutions and individual traits at the household, parcel and neighborhood scales lead to vegetative heterogeneity within and across cities. These findings have implications for promotion of pollinator habitat within residential areas, as well as predicting future trends of land cover and vegetative structure change in urban residential lands, a growing land use type.
