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If you plant it, they will come: quantifying attractiveness of exotic plants for winter-active flower visitors in community gardens

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Abstract

Urban community gardens are potentially important sites for urban pollinator conservation because of their high density, diversity of flowering plants, and low pesticide use (relative to agricultural spaces). Selective planting of attractive crop plants is a simple and cost-effective strategy for attracting flower visitors to urban green spaces, however, there is limited empirical data about which plants are most attractive. Here, we identified key plant species that were important for supporting flower visitors using a network-based approach that combined metrics of flower visitor abundance and diversity on different crop species. We included a metric of ‘popularity’ which assessed how frequently a particular plant appeared within community gardens. We also determined the impact of garden characteristics such as size, flower species richness, and flower species density on the abundance and diversity of flower visitors. Two plant species, Brassica rapa and Ocimum basilicum were identified as being particularly important species for supporting flower visitor populations. Flower species richness had a strong positive effect on both the abundance and diversity of flower visitors. We suggest that gardeners can maximise the conservation value of their gardens by planting a wide variety of flowering plants including attractive plants such as B. rapa and O. basilicum.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Perrin Tasker, Caragh G. Threlfall & Tanya Latty

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia

    Chris Reid

  3. California Department of Food and Agriculture, Plant Pest Diagnostics Center, 3294 Meadowview Road, Sacramento, CA, 95832, USA

    Andrew D. Young

  4. Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of California, Briggs Hall, Davis, CA, 95616-5270, USA

    Andrew D. Young

  5. School of Ecosystem & Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Caragh G. Threlfall

Authors
  1. Perrin Tasker
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  2. Chris Reid
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  3. Andrew D. Young
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  4. Caragh G. Threlfall
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  5. Tanya Latty
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tanya Latty.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 5 All species of floral visitor observed throughout the study period and the total number of floral visits recorded for each species
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Appendix 2

Table 6 All flowering plant species observed throughout the study period and the total number of floral visits (if any) recorded
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Tasker, P., Reid, C., Young, A.D. et al. If you plant it, they will come: quantifying attractiveness of exotic plants for winter-active flower visitors in community gardens. Urban Ecosyst 23, 345–354 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-019-00914-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-019-00914-1

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