Ecology of Residential Yards
Residential yards represent one of the most rapidly expanding, yet least understood, systems on earth, currently covering more than 20% of all the land in the United States. The management decisions homeowners make in their yards can have global effects on the abiotic and biotic properties of ecological systems. I believe that residential yards present a conservation opportunity to connect the global public to the natural world, increase ecological knowledge, and support habitat for biodiversity that provide important ecosystem services. By encouraging a new ethos of land management through a network of homeowners, conservation can make significant action that combines both human values and ecological needs. However, to revolutionize our current land ethic, ecologists must broaden the accessibility for diverse community participation, increase replicability by providing data-driven recommendations, and provide opportunities for residents to experience tangible outcomes of restoration. By emphasizing the importance of yard management decisions to the broader environmental landscape, ecologists and the public can form a partnership to begin transforming our homes into land that contributes to ecologically-functional habitat.
In my postdoctoral research with Dr. Susannah Lerman from the USDA Forest Service and Dr. Peter Groffman from City University of New York, I am currently analyzing bird, bee and ground arthropod communities, environmental data and geospatial land cover in six major metropolitan areas to determine the macroecological relationships between residential landscape management and biodiversity at local and landscape scales. This work is embedded within a larger interdisciplinary project with more than a dozen interdisciplinary collaborators from ecology, sociology and geography working together to determine the extent land sharing or land sparing tactics reduce ecological homogenization when scaled up to larger landscapes. With these data I am exploring the following questions:
a) To what extent do hetergenous land-sparing and land-sharing management tactics contribute to taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity?
b) How well do different land uses within urban areas reduce homogenization and support species of conservation concern?
c) How can we expect city-wide biodiversity to change if different land uses are scaled across larger spatial scales over time?
d) On a macroscale, what is the relationship between urban biodiversity and habitat features (e.g. plant diversity, soil chemistry, etc.)
Published:
Papers in progress:
* Dual first author
In my postdoctoral research with Dr. Susannah Lerman from the USDA Forest Service and Dr. Peter Groffman from City University of New York, I am currently analyzing bird, bee and ground arthropod communities, environmental data and geospatial land cover in six major metropolitan areas to determine the macroecological relationships between residential landscape management and biodiversity at local and landscape scales. This work is embedded within a larger interdisciplinary project with more than a dozen interdisciplinary collaborators from ecology, sociology and geography working together to determine the extent land sharing or land sparing tactics reduce ecological homogenization when scaled up to larger landscapes. With these data I am exploring the following questions:
a) To what extent do hetergenous land-sparing and land-sharing management tactics contribute to taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity?
b) How well do different land uses within urban areas reduce homogenization and support species of conservation concern?
c) How can we expect city-wide biodiversity to change if different land uses are scaled across larger spatial scales over time?
d) On a macroscale, what is the relationship between urban biodiversity and habitat features (e.g. plant diversity, soil chemistry, etc.)
Published:
- Cubino, P., Cavender-Bares J., Lerman, S. B., Groffman, P.M., Avolio, M.L., Trammell, T.L.E., Wheeler, M. M., Larson, K.L., Narango, D.L., Neill, C., Bratt, A.R., Hall, S. J., Hobbie, S.E. (2020) Taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional composition and homogenization of residential yard vegetation with contrasting management. In press, Landscape and Urban Planning.
- Larson, K.L., Fleeger, M., Wheeler, M.M., Andrade, R., Brown, J., Hall, S.J., Lerman, S.B., Narango, D.L. (2020) Who’s abuzz about bees? Explaining Residents’ Attitudes in Phoenix, Arizona. In press, Urban Ecosystems.
- Lerman, S.B. Narango, D.L.†, Avolio, M.L., Bratt, A.R., Engebretson, J.M., Groffman, P.M., Hall S.J., Heffernan, J.B., Hobbie, S.E., Larson, K.L., Locke, D.H., Neill, C., Nelson, K.C., Padullés Cubino, J., and Trammell, T.L.E. Macroecological patterns of local and landscape management on urban breeding bird communities; How does yard management affect community composition? Accepted, Ecological Applications.
Papers in progress:
- Lerman S.A., Narango, D.L. and Marra P.P. Humanity for Habitat: A call for a new ethos of residential land management. In review, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
- Narango, D.L. Lerman, S.B., Avolio, M.L., Bratt, A.R., Engebretson, J.M., Groffman, P.M., Hall S.J., Heffernan, J.B., Hobbie, S.E., Larson, K.L., Locke, D.H., Neill, C., Nelson, K.C., Padullés Cubino, J., and Trammell, T.L.E.. Urban land management and canopy cover affects multiple metrics of ground beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) diversity across six US metropolitan cities, In prep (full draft)
- Narango, D.L. †, Bratt, A.R., 15+ additional coauthors. Nature-based yards support disproportionate biodiversity-derived ecosystem service in urban systems across space and time, In prep.
- Grijseels, N., et al. 15+ additional coauthors. Evapotranspiration of irrigated residential lawns across the United States. In prep for Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, special issue. "Urban Water Management, Planning, and Design: Links, Opportunities, and Challenges".
* Dual first author
