Progress 05/01/22 to 04/30/23
Outputs
Target Audience:During this year of this grant, our target audience included the scientific community, individuals and organizations involved in urban gardening, and graduate and undergraduate students. The scientific community informed by our project includes colleagues at UC Santa Cruz, Seattle University, U. of Texas Austin, and CSIRO (Australia), and colleagues and scientists we have reached at conferences in presentations. Continuing from our previous grant into the current project, over the reporting period, we published 5 papers in peer-reviewed journals and books, and have another 1 in revisions/review, and 10 in prep. One student completed her PhD Dissertation. We gave 4 presentations at national conferences and department seminars including Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting, and four student interns presented at research symposia at UCSC. We also gave one public presentation with youth at a summer camp at one of our research study sites (10 participants), and led four insect workshops with gardeners affiliated with the Tierras Milperas garden support organization (16 participants total). Individuals and organizations involved in urban gardening are diverse and include government organizations (e.g. City of Santa Cruz, the City of San Jose, City of Sunnyvale), non-profit organizations (e.g. Tierras Milperas, Homeless Garden Project, Mid County Senior Center, Salinas Chinatown Garden), church gardens (e.g. Aptos Community Garden), as well as school gardens (e.g. UC Santa Cruz Alan Chadwick Garden, Monterrey Institute of International Studies, MEarth Garden at Carmel Middle School). The gardeners at those organizations are from many ethnic and cultural backgrounds including from Mexico and Central America (including both mestizo and indigenous populations), Arab, Assyrian, Bosnian, Caucasian, African American, and European-American gardeners. Our gardener surveys with 187 gardeners in 2017 revealed 36 nationalities and >25 languages represented in the gardens. This array of ethnic diversity is typical of urban gardens, and provides a unique opportunity for understanding variable management practices, even within a relatively small geographic area, and for sharing results with groups of people with family and cultural networks that expand far beyond the study region. Taking advantage of new ease of online communications, we held two Advisory Board meetings via zoom, and also communicated with gardeners at all gardens in person during the 2021 field season. Our target audience also includes students and others at our institutions who have heard presentations and who have been trained by the project. UC Santa Cruz is a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISI). UT Austin also recently became a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). Seattle University is a small, liberal arts college. During the third year of the project, we worked to train two PhD students at UCSC (both women students of color) and 5 additional students (all underrepresented) in internships in projects related to the grant goals. In addition, we worked with two female postdoctoral fellows to support them in research related to the project goals. Changes/Problems:Although we did experience set-backs in launching the project due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had very successful 2021 and 2022 field seasons and were rapidly able to accumulate a large amount of data towards our original project goals. We have completed most lab work necessary (e.g., insect ID, plant identification, plant trait measurements, insect diet analysis), however much data processing and analysis still needs to take place. This will be the primary focus of our work from June - October. From November to April, we will work to submit remaining publications relevant to our project goals. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The research has provided opportunities for training and professional development for two postdocs and several graduate and undergraduate students at UC Santa Cruz, Seattle University, and the University of Texas. We also provided training to adult and youth gardeners in the study region, and some of the graduate students gained valuable mentoring experience running internships or research projects with undergraduate students. For the publications published or submitted during this granting year, we included 3 graduate students and 4 undergraduate students. In the presentations and posters presented during Y3 of the grant, these included presentations delivered by 2 graduate students and 4 undergraduate presenters. For the ongoing research activities in the field and lab, we included two postdocs, two graduate students, and 9 undergraduate students. Of all of these trainees (21 individuals), 11 identify as women, 2 identify as non-binary, 1 is a transgender man, and 11 are people of color. Thus, our project worked to train individuals from several underrepresented groups. We included students in all aspects of the research including data collection (from the field or from the literature), data analysis, writing, and presentations. All students learned valuable skills in field methods (e.g. collecting vegetation data, insects, recognizing plant species, quantitative social research), and also in data entry, data analysis, presentation techniques, and collaboration. All students also participated in weekly lab meetings and were exposed to larger issues related to agroecology and temperate and tropical ecological research. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have distributed our research in both the scientific and gardener communities. The scientific community has been informed by our research in publications and presentations. During the current reporting period, we published 5 papers in peer-reviewed journals and books, and have several other journal publications in various stages of review and prep. We gave 4 presentations at national conferences including the Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting and at Department Seminars. Four students gave symposium presentations for their internship programs. For the gardener community, we interacted with gardeners in several ways. First, one of the graduate students on the project delivered four insect-related workshops to members of a gardening organization (Tierras Milperas) at one of our study sites in Watsonville, California. This organization predominantly serves farmworkers in their ability to gain access to land for growing their own food. These workshops reached approximately 25 gardeners. Second, the PD and research technician delivered a presentation to youth gardeners at the MEarth garden in Carmel, California during a summer camp. The audience was approximately 10 youth. All of these instances have provided training for adults and youth that interact with urban gardens in their lives. Third, we corresponded with dozens of gardeners while doing field research. Fourth, we met with members of our Advisory Board once during the third year of the project, and also submitted a report to all garden managers and organizations that host our research. We continued to update our project website with our most recent findings. We also adjusted our report based on Advisory Board suggestions. Our research was featured on our own websites, in our annual report sent to all garden leaders and organizations, and also in seven separate media outlets and newsletters including the National Science Foundation website and MarthaStewart.com. Our project websites and reports Project Website: Our project website: www.urbangardenecology.com Project Website: Our lab website: https://philpottlab.sites.ucsc.edu/ Biodiversity in Urban Gardens (BUGS) Gardener report 2020/2021 - https://www.urbangardenecology.com/uploads/6/8/7/8/68786455/2021_bugs_gardenreport.pdf News/ Media Coverage Edible Monterey Bay (2022). Bee Friendly. Available at https://www.ediblemontereybay.com/online-magazine/summer-2022/bee-friendly/ MEarth (2022). UC Santa Cruz Study of Pollinators at the Hilton Bialek Habitat. Membership Newsletter mailed on 23 July. MarthaStewart.Com (2022) Want to Attract Special Birds and Bees to Your Garden? Add Rare Plants to Your Backyard, a New Study Says. Available at https://www.marthastewart.com/8295025/how-attract-birds-bees-garden-with-rare-plants-study-july-2022?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-share-article EOS (2023). Gardens Are Good for the Neighborhood. Available at https://eos.org/articles/gardens-are-good-for-the-neighborhood. NSF (2023). Urban gardens are good for ecosystems and humans. Research News. Available at https://new.nsf.gov/news/urban-gardens-are-good-ecosystems-humans. Pacific Horticulture (2023). Voices of the West: New Science on Life in the Garden -Article 2: Biodiversity. Available at https://pacifichorticulture.org/articles/voices-of-the-west-new-science-on-life-in-the-garden-article-2-biodiversity/ UT News (2023). Urban Gardens Are Good for Ecosystems and Humans. Available at https://news.utexas.edu/2023/02/07/urban-gardens-are-good-for-ecosystems-and-humans/ What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In this next year (the last year, and no-cost extension year of our grant), we will continue to submit all of the works that we currently have in prep, and also work on data analysis and writing for the remaining project objectives. Pollinator species traits. We will continue identification on the pollinator specimens collected, and in particular will work to identify syrphids, bombylids, and Lepidoptera collected. Once all pollinator identification is complete, we will work to quantify response and effect traits. We will leverage an existing pollinator traits database including nesting habits, and diet breadth complemented with specimen measurements to estimate body and wing size (typically measured via intertegular distance), mouth type and size, and pollen-carrying (scopal) size and location. Pollinator-plant networks. We will construct construction of observation-based networks, calculate network metrics, and perform data analysis. We will also work to launch pollen-based pollinator-plant network analysis by collecting pollen off pinned pollinators. We will create pollen-based networks using light microscopy and existing pollen reference collections from the region. For all pollinator species with 5 individuals per site, we will dye grains with fuschin, mount grains on a slide with glycerol, scan at 20-40x zoom, and compare with our reference collection to identify to species. Pollination. We will conduct data analysis for the jalapeño pollination experiment by examining effect sizes in seed, fruit size, and weight between open and outcross plants. Natural enemy survey and traits. We will complete identification of all natural enemies and herbivores collected in gardens. For common natural enemies, we will quantify a set of response and effect traits. We will measure body size for 10 randomly selected specimens, and determine (based on literature or field observations) voltinism, diet breadth (specialists, generalists), dispersal mode (flying, non-flying), hunting strategy (sitting, chasing), and hunting strata (ground, vegetation). Natural enemy-herbivore networks. We will construct observation-based and molecular-based natural enemy-herbivore networks. We will construct observation-based networks with co-occurrence data from natural enemy surveys. On plants where we survey natural enemies, we will survey abundance and identity of herbivores (e.g., cabbage aphids, cabbage loopers). We will determine feeding links using qualitative diet information from the literature and host identity from our lab-reared parasitoids. For all natural enemy species for which we have 5 replicates per site, we will extract DNA from each individual and pool samples by species, site, and time. Pest control: We will continue to analyze data from the pest control experiment, and assess how natural-enemy- herbivore network metrics and plant traits influence pest removal. Crop production and quality. We will conduct data analysis on crop damage and production data collected in 2021. Soil and water manipulation experiments. We will continue data analysis on the experiments used to test how soil inputs and irrigation affect kale, tomato, and jalapeño traits. Data analysis. For all different projects, we will use the RLQ and fourth corner approach to quantify impacts of local and landscape filters on plant, pollinator, and natural enemy traits. We will calculate effect trait metrics (functional richness and functional divergence) for pollinators and natural enemies. We will calculate network metrics (estimated interaction richness, nestedness, trophic complementarity) for species-based and trait-based pollinator-plant and natural enemy-herbivore networks with the 'bipartite' package in R. For species-based networks, abundance of pollinator or natural enemy species will populate nodes. For trait-based networks, we will classify species into functional groups based on their effect traits (e.g., large, generalist ground-nesting) and abundance of all species in that functional group will populate individual nodes (see Geslin et al. 2013). We will use generalized linear models (GLM) to test relationships between (a) soil characteristics and plant traits, (b) local and landscape management filters, functional trait metrics, network metrics, pollination and pest control effect sizes, and crop production and quality measurements. We will run models with the 'glmulti' package in R and will be checked for collinearity using VIF scores. We are currently conducting an online survey to learn more about how gardener demographics (e.g., age, gender, languages spoken), education, as well as years of gardening experience influences gardener knowledge of insects as well as their garden management preferences. We have by now received ~90 responses to this online survey. We will continue the survey until August, and thereafter will analyze the responses to address our related project hypothesis.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Project Impact: We advanced our work exploring how garden management and landscape features, as well as the social context surrounding gardening contribute to biodiversity conservation, ecological complexity, delivery of ecosystem services, food production, and benefits provided to gardeners. Our research determined how features such as secure land tenure, neighborhood wealth, and gardener backgrounds can influence ground covers, diversity of plant species and traits, and garden vegetation complexity. Such changes in ground cover, plant diversity, and vegetation height strongly impact beneficial insects (e.g., natural enemies of pests and pollinators), as well as beneficials interact with garden pests, crop plants, and hence fruit and vegetable production. In general, our research documents that land tenure and gardener diversity result in higher insect diversity and more complex interactions, and can benefit ecosystem services. We completed 5 papers, and advanced work on 11 others. We trained 21 individuals, most from underrepresented backgrounds. We reached gardener communities, and our research was covered by multiple news outlets. 1) Major activities completed Publications We published 5 articles: (1) impacts of 'tidy vs. 'messy' gardens on pest control; (2) urban ant ecology and function; (3) trade-offs among biodiversity and ecosystem services; (4) native plant influences on insect communities; and (5) land tenure security and "luxury" influences on plant species and functional richness and trait composition. We submitted 1 manuscript on parasitoid-host ecological network structure and parasitism rates We have 10 manuscripts in prep: (1) bee pollen collection and fruit set, (2) local and landscape drivers of plant-pollinator networks, (3, 4) ground cover and vegetation complexity influences on natural enemies, (5) natural enemy and herbivore communities on cucurbits, (6) herbivore and natural enemy metacommunity structure, (7) impacts of ground covers on predation and predator communities, (8) socio-ecological drivers of garden management, (9) role of gardens in food security, and (10) ecological, distance, and social drivers of community assembly. Advisory Board We shared research plans and discussed a draft of our annual gardener report. Field, Greenhouse, Lab Research We conducted field research to study how ground cover influences prey removal and predator composition. We conducted lab work to identify natural enemies, herbivores, and pollinators collected in 2021. We investigated gut contents of common species of ants and predatory bugs collected from gardens using molecular methods. 2) Data collected We collected data to address questions and project hypotheses related to ecological networks, traits, and ecosystem services. We calculated functional diversity metrics and community weighted mean values for plant traits measured on 83 plant species. We identified pollinator species and began to search the literature for effect and response traits for observed pollinators. We refined plant-pollinator networks created in early 2022 based on more detailed, species-level pollinator ID. We identified natural enemies, and began to search the literature for effect and response traits for observed natural enemies. We conducted an experiment to examine how ground cover and other garden factors influence prey removal and predator composition. We conducted focus groups and interviews with gardeners. Focus group participants took photos of garden plots and discussed related topics. Interview participants shared information about gardening background, management preferences, and knowledge of biodiversity in their gardens. 3) Summary Statistics, Discussion of Results The data for our published articles show that: "Messy" or "tidy" management does not alter natural enemy or herbivore abundance, richness or composition; however, messy garden management boosted egg pest removal. We found a dominance of ecosystem service synergies (positive correlations), and that landscape composition (natural habitat cover) mediates the level of ecosystem service provision for a number of key services, especially those mediated by mobile animals The potential for ants to provide ecosystem services in urban areas depends on species composition; some urban ants are highly effective, but often efficient species decline or are replaced by less efficient species as urbanization proceeds. Native plants represent ~10% of the species and ~2.5% of plant cover, and do not strongly affect bee, ladybeetle, or ant diversity; but do negatively impact non-native spiders. Cultivated plants and traits are strongly shaped by garden socioeconomic factors, where land tenure-secure gardens had higher plant and crop richness and garden luxury boosted ornamental plant richness, flower abundance and height, lowered crop richness, and strongly impacted plant species composition. In our work on pollinators, plant-pollinator networks, and pollination services we documented that: pollinator diversity and abundance interacted with local floral resource levels to positively impact tomato pollen deposition pollinator diversity significantly interacted with floral resources to positively impact flower-to-fruit phenological turnover trees and shrubs suppress volume of tomato fruit produced, revealing a key trade-off between food production and tree density plant-pollinator interactions shift depending on vegetation height, diversity of flowering plants, and amount of natural habitat in the landscape pepper seed number and fruit weight increased with floral abundance, and fruit weight declined with increased pollinator richness, yet no network metrics predicted pepper pollination. In our work on natural enemies and pest control we found that: Local management and landscape composition influenced host abundance and parasitism, while only local factors affected network structure; more host-parasitoid network connections correlated with enhanced and lower parasitism depending on host species Crop cover boosted ant species richness, but suppressed ground-dwelling arthropods; ornamental species negatively affected ant diversity, but boosted spider abundance, diversity, and evenness; bare soil cover reduced spider diversity but increased overall richness. Gardener plots with high vegetation density supported a greater richness of foliage-dwelling natural enemies and a greater abundance of ground-dwelling natural enemies and a greater abundance and richness of spiders on foliage. Neither abundance of natural enemies nor herbivores on cucurbits was influenced by local or landscape variables; however, parasitoids declined in sites with more urban cover, bug abundance increased with urban cover, ants were more abundant in bigger gardens, while spiders thrived with flower abundance, but not flower diversity The structure of herbivore metacommunities is mostly determined by landscape-scale variables, while network structure for natural enemies is mostly influenced by local garden characteristics (i.e. resources provided by urban garden habitats) A very high proportion of eggs and about half of larvae were removed by predators; for eggs, ants were the most abundant predator, and for larvae, we saw 14 species of predators including birds, lizards, wasps, ants, and spiders. In work on socio-ecological drivers of management, motivations, and food production, we found: Garden plots exhibit a range of management styles that speak to the values of gardeners and garden projects more broadly. We found that ~37% of gardeners harvest 1-5 lbs of food per week, with another 28% harvesting 6-10 lbs of food weekly; estimates that were corroborated by field measurements of tomato, squash and pepper yields. 4) Key outcomes. We published 5 studies, made several presentations at national conferences, department seminars, and events for the general public, and trained several students and two postdocs.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Jha S, Egerer MH, Bichier P, Cohen H, Liere H, Lin BB, Lucatero A, Philpott SM. (2023). Multiple ecosystem service synergies and landscape-mediation of biodiversity within urban agroecosystems. Ecology Letters. 26: 369-383
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Perfecto I, Philpott SM. (2023). Ants and ecosystem functions and services in urban areas: A reflection on a diverse literature. Myrmecological News. 33: 103-122
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Philpott SM, Lucatero A, Andrade S, Hernandez C, Bichier P. (2023). Promoting beneficial arthropods in urban agroecosystems: focus on flowers, not native plants. Insects. 14: art 576.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
" Philpott SM, Bichier P, Perez G, Jha S, Liere H, Lin BB. (2023). Land tenure security and luxury support plant species and trait biodiversity in urban community gardens. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. 7:1195737. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2023.1195737
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Lucatero A, Smith NR, Bichier P, Liere H, Philpott SM. Shifts in host-parasitoid networks across garden management and urban landscape gradients. In Review at Ecosphere
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Jha S, Jordan Z, Tran E, Egerer M, Cohen H, Liere H, Lucatero A, Bichier P, Lin B, Philpott SM. Rethinking foraging-based ecosystem services: ecosystem properties interact to differentially regulate the service cascade. In prep for Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Philpott SM, Hsu J, Kulikowski A, Lin BB, Liere H, Jha S. Plant-pollinator networks across garden gradients in urban landscapes. In prep for Ecological Applications.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Egerer ME, Philpott SM. (2022). Tidy and messy management alters natural enemy communities and pest control in urban agroecosystems. PLoS One 17(9): e0274122.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Liere, H., Lin, B, Jha. S, S. Philpott. Effect of ground cover on the abundance, species richness, and evenness of ground-dwelling natural enemies in urban community gardens. In prep for Basic and Applied Ecology
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Gonzales E, Mu�oz-Serrano M, Jha S, Lin BB, Liere H, Philpott SM. Unmasking the effects of local and landscape factors on natural enemies and herbivore groups on cucurbit plants in urban agroecosystems. In prep for Environmental Entomology
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Lucatero A, Jha S, Philpott SM. Local habitat complexity and its effects on garden herbivores and natural enemies. In prep for Insects.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Lucatero A, Wilmers C, Philpott SM. Herbivore and natural enemy metacommunity structure in urban agroecosystems. In prep Ecological Applications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Philpott SM, Bichier P, Jha S, BB Lin, Liere H. Landscape, habitat, and microhabitat influences on predator abundance and composition and prey removal in urban agroecosystems. In prep for Biological Control
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Lucatero A, Fairbiarn. Socio-ecological processes producing gradients of garden complexity. In prep for Agriculture and Human Values
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Lin BB, Bichier P, Egerer MH, Liere H, Philpott SM, Jha S. The role of urban gardens in food production and food security. In prep for Science of the Total Environment
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Liere H, Jha S, Lin BB, Philpott SM. Metacommunities in urban community gardens: relative strength of social, environmental, and spatial filters in facilitated and self-assembly communities in highly managed urban patches. In prep for Landscape Ecology.
- Type:
Theses/Dissertations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Lucatero A (2023). Ecological complexity and socio-ecological interactions in urban agroecosystems. PhD Dissertation. Environmental Studies Department. U. of California, Santa Cruz.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Omolulu T, Dunn L, Grandhi S (2022) Insect Diversity & Ecosystem Services in Urban Agroecosystems. Building Belonging Student Symposium. University of California, Santa Cruz. 3 June 2022
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Zajonc R, Lucatero (2022) The Effects of Local and Landscape Characteristics on Bird Feeding Guilds in Urban Community Gardens. Center to Advance Mentored, Inquiry-based Opportunities (CAMINO) Fall 2022 Research Symposium. 15 October
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Ivers N, Jha S (2022). Biogeography, climate, and land use isolate host populations and create a mosaic landscape of parasite risk in bumble bees. Oral presentation at Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting, Vancouver BC, 14 November.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Philpott SM (2023) Influencias de manejo y el paisaje sobre la biodiversidad de insectos y servicios ecosist�micos en agroecosistemas urbanos. Department of Entomology Seminar, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia. 15 January
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Lucatero A, Philpott SM (2022). Vegetation complexity, herbivores, and natural enemies in urban agroecosystems. Oral presentation at Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada. 17 August 2022
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Lucatero A (2023) Ecological complexity and socio-ecological interactions in urban agroecosystems. Environmental Studies Department Seminar. University of California, Santa Cruz. 15 March.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Edible Monterey Bay (2022). Bee Friendly. Available at https://www.ediblemontereybay.com/online-magazine/summer-2022/bee-friendly/
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
MarthaStewart.Com (2022) Want to Attract Special Birds and Bees to Your Garden? Add Rare Plants to Your Backyard, a New Study Says. Available at https://www.marthastewart.com/8295025/how-attract-birds-bees-garden-with-rare-plants-study-july-2022?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-share-article
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
EOS (2023). Gardens Are Good for the Neighborhood. Available at https://eos.org/articles/gardens-are-good-for-the-neighborhood.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
NSF (2023). Urban gardens are good for ecosystems and humans. Research News. Available at https://new.nsf.gov/news/urban-gardens-are-good-ecosystems-humans.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
MEarth (2022). UC Santa Cruz Study of Pollinators at the Hilton Bialek Habitat. Membership Newsletter mailed on 23 July.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Pacific Horticulture (2023). Voices of the West: New Science on Life in the Garden Article 2: Biodiversity. Available at https://pacifichorticulture.org/articles/voices-of-the-west-new-science-on-life-in-the-garden-article-2-biodiversity/
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
UT News (2023). Urban Gardens Are Good for Ecosystems and Humans. Available at https://news.utexas.edu/2023/02/07/urban-gardens-are-good-for-ecosystems-and-humans/
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Project Website: Our project website: www.urbangardenecology.com
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Project Website: Our lab website: https://philpottlab.sites.ucsc.edu/
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
BUGS Gardener report 2022 - https://www.urbangardenecology.com/uploads/6/8/7/8/68786455/bugs_2022_report.pdf
|
Progress 05/01/21 to 04/30/22
Outputs
Target Audience:During this year of this grant, our target audience included the scientific community, individuals and organizations involved in urban gardening, and graduate and undergraduate students. The scientific community informed by our project includes colleagues at UC Santa Cruz, Seattle University, U. of Texas Austin, and CSIRO (Australia), and colleagues and scientists we have reached at conferences in presentations. Continuing from our previous grant into the current project, over the reporting period, we published 4 papers in peer-reviewed journals and books, and have another 4 in revisions/review, and 4 in prep. We gave 5 presentations at national conferences and department seminars including Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting. We also gave two public presentations to an audience of over 85 people. The project supported the completion of three undergraduate theses over the past year. Individuals and organizations involved in urban gardening are diverse and include government organizations (e.g. City of Santa Cruz, the City of San Jose, City of Sunnyvale), non-profit organizations (e.g. Tierras Milperas, Homeless Garden Project, Mid County Senior Center, Salinas Chinatown Garden), church gardens (e.g. Aptos Community Garden), as well as school gardens (e.g. UC Santa Cruz Alan Chadwick Garden, Monterrey Institute of International Studies, MEarth Garden at Carmel Middle School). The gardeners at those organizations are from many ethnic and cultural backgrounds including from Mexico and Central America (including both mestizo and indigenous populations), Arab, Assyrian, Bosnian, Caucasian, African American, and European-American gardeners. Our gardener surveys with 187 gardeners in 2017 revealed 36 nationalities and >25 languages represented in the gardens. This array of ethnic diversity is typical of urban gardens, and provides a unique opportunity for understanding variable management practices, even within a relatively small geographic area, and for sharing results with groups of people with family and cultural networks that expand far beyond the study region. Taking advantage of new ease of online communications, we held two Advisory Board meetings via zoom, and also communicated with gardeners at all gardens in person during the 2021 field season. Our target audience also includes students and others at our institutions who have heard presentations and who have been trained by the project. UC Santa Cruz is a Hispanic Serving Institution. UT also serves a large Hispanic student population, currently representing 17.5% of the student body, and comprising a 10-year pattern of consecutive increase. Seattle University is a small, liberal arts college. During the second year of the project, we worked to train two PhD students at UCSC (both women students of color) and 3 undergraduate thesis students (all woman of color), and 2 additional students (both women of color) in internships in projects related to the grant goals. Changes/Problems:Although we did experience set-backs in launching the project due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had a very successful 2021 field season and were rapidly able to accumulate a large amount of data towards our original project goals. Lab work was slow during the academic year, especially due to the omicron outbreak in winter 2021 - our lab research activities were again suspended as UC Santa Cruz returned to online instruction for one month. Due to initial delays in launching field work, and added delays in lab work and identification of pollinators and natural enemies, progress is slower than we would have liked during this project. We also have experienced very significant delays in review times for most of the manuscripts that we have submitted for the project, with journals taking more than 8 months to even assign associate editors for our manuscripts. We anticipate needing to apply for a no-cost extension in order to complete the grant deliverables. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The research has provided opportunities for training and professional development for several postdocs and students based both at UC Santa Cruz. In total, for the publications and projects that were published or submitted during the second year, we included these individuals in the research: one postdoc (woman), five PhD students (4 women, 1 student of color) and two undergraduates. Five undergraduates completed senior theses or internships related to the project (all women students of color). In our 2021 field crew, we included 1 postdoc (woman), two PhD students (both women of color), and five undergraduates (all women of color). We included students in all aspects of the research including data collection (from the field or from the literature), data analysis, writing, and presentations. All students learned valuable skills in field methods (e.g. collecting vegetation data, insects, recognizing plant species, quantitative social research), and also in data entry, data analysis, presentation techniques, and collaboration. All students also participated in weekly lab meetings and were exposed to larger issues related to agroecology and temperate and tropical ecological research. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have distributed our research in both the scientific and gardener communities. The scientific community has been informed by our research in publications and presentations. Continuing from our previous grant into the current project, over the reporting period, we published 4 papers in peer-reviewed journals and books, and have another 4 in revisions/review, and 4 in prep. We gave 5 presentations at national conferences including Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting and at Department Seminars. Two students gave symposium presentations for their internship programs. For the gardener community, we gave one presentation to a gardener group (via Zoom, 12 in attendance) and made one presentation about our pollinator work to the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History (via Zoom, 75 in attendance) in the second year of our project. We also corresponded with dozens of gardeners while doing field research. We met with members of our Advisory Board twice during the second year of the project, and also submitted a report to all garden managers and organizations that host our research. We continued to update our project website with our most recent findings. We also adjusted our report based on Advisory Board suggestions - many gardeners are interested in Monarch Butterflies. Although not a specific subject of our research, we included a section of our report to address conservation and recommendations for gardeners interested in insects. Project Website: Our project website: www.urbangardenecology.com Project Website: Our lab website: https://philpottlab.sites.ucsc.edu/ Biodiversity in Urban Gardens (BUGS) Gardener report 2020/2021 - https://www.urbangardenecology.com/uploads/6/8/7/8/68786455/2021_bugs_gardenreport.pdf What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In this next year, we will continue to work with specimens and data collected during our 2021 field season to address our grant deliverables. Plant traits: With the information we have collected on plant traits for 83 common plant species in the gardens (e.g., plant structure, herbivore defense, floral attraction, floral access, extrafloral notaries), we will create community trait metrics to describe the range of trait values and the functional diversity of traits available to insects at each of the study gardens. This will be included as a predictor variable in each of the subsequent analyses. We will also examine social and economic indicators of plant trait variation within gardens to understand drivers of trait diversity, should those be important for determining ecosystem services in gardens. Pollinator species traits. We will continue identification on the pollinator specimens collected, and in particular will work to identify syrphids, bombylids, and Lepidoptera collected. Once all pollinator identification is complete, we will work to quantify response and effect traits. We will leverage an existing pollinator traits database including nesting habits, and diet breadth complemented with specimen measurements to estimate body and wing size (typically measured via intertegular distance), mouth type and size, and pollen-carrying (scopal) size and location. Pollinator-plant networks. We will construct construction of observation-based networks, calculate network metrics, and perform data analysis. We will also work to launch pollen-based pollinator-plant network analysis by collecting pollen off pinned pollinators. We will create pollen-based networks using light microscopy and existing pollen reference collections from the region. For all pollinator species with 5 individuals per site, we will dye grains with fuschin, mount grains on a slide with glycerol, scan at 20-40x zoom, and compare with our reference collection to identify to species. Pollination. We will conduct data analysis for the jalapeño pollination experiment by examining effect sizes in seed, fruit size, and weight between open and outcross plants. Natural enemy survey and traits. We will complete identification of all natural enemies and herbivores collected in gardens. For common natural enemies, we will quantify a set of response and effect traits. We will measure body size for 10 randomly selected specimens, and determine (based on literature or field observations) voltinism, diet breadth (specialists, generalists), dispersal mode (flying, non-flying), hunting strategy (sitting, chasing), and hunting strata (ground, vegetation). Natural enemy-herbivore networks. We will construct observation-based and molecular-based natural enemy-herbivore networks. We will construct observation-based networks with co-occurrence data from natural enemy surveys. On plants where we survey natural enemies, we will survey abundance and identity of herbivores (e.g., cabbage aphids, cabbage loopers). We will determine feeding links using qualitative diet information from the literature and host identity from our lab-reared parasitoids. For all natural enemy species for which we have 5 replicates per site, we will extract DNA from each individual and pool samples by species, site, and time. Pest control: We will continue to analyze data from the pest control experiment, and assess how natural-enemy- herbivore network metrics and plant traits influence pest removal. Crop production and quality. We will conduct data analysis on crop damage and production data collected in 2021. Soil and water manipulation experiments. We will continue data analysis on the experiments used to test how soil inputs and irrigation affect kale, tomato, and jalapeño traits. Data analysis. For all different projects, we will use the RLQ and fourth corner approach to quantify impacts of local and landscape filters on plant, pollinator, and natural enemy traits. We will calculate effect trait metrics (functional richness and functional divergence) for pollinators and natural enemies. We will calculate network metrics (estimated interaction richness, nestedness, trophic complementarity) for species-based and trait-based pollinator-plant and natural enemy-herbivore networks with the 'bipartite' package in R. For species-based networks, abundance of pollinator or natural enemy species will populate nodes. For trait-based networks, we will classify species into functional groups based on their effect traits (e.g., large, generalist ground-nesting) and abundance of all species in that functional group will populate individual nodes (see Geslin et al. 2013). We will use generalized linear models (GLM) to test relationships between (a) soil characteristics and plant traits, (b) local and landscape management filters, functional trait metrics, network metrics, pollination and pest control effect sizes, and crop production and quality measurements. We will run models with the 'glmulti' package in R and will be checked for collinearity using VIF scores. We also will do field research during 2022 to assess how shifts in garden management affect ecosystem services. The specific question that we will address is: Who are the major predators removing sentinel pests within gardens and how does their abundance and activity differ with specific garden management activities (e.g., mulch addition, vegetation density)? To do this work, we will conduct three related experiments. In the first experiment, we will examine removal of corn ear worm eggs from gardens. We will place eggs in three microhabitats within gardens (mulch, bare ground, and vegetated areas) on two substrates (on the ground, on greenhouse-raised kale plants), and will observe egg cards every 10 min. for three hours in 18 gardens that also vary in local and landscape management. We expect to find mainly ants, geocorid bugs, and spiders as predators, but also expect that their activity and presence may vary depending on the microhabitat within the garden, and thus removal rates will differ based on substrate and microhabitat. In the second experiment, we will examine removal of cabbage looper larvae from gardens. We will place larvae in three microhabitats within gardens (mulch, bare ground, and vegetated areas) on two substrates (on the ground, on greenhouse-raised kale plants), and will record larvae removal for three hours with timelapse cameras (Brinno TLC 200). Cameras will photograph larvae every 1 sec for three hours. We will then examine compiled videos to observe predators. We expect to find insectivorous birds, lizards, ants and spiders to remove larvae, and that the activity and presence of different predators may vary depending on the microhabitat within the garden, and thus removal rates will differ based on substrate and microhabitat. In the third experiment, we will place sentinel caterpillars (playdough) within gardens for 24h to remove bite or attack marks made from predators. We will place fake caterpillars in the same microhabitats and substrates and observe their removal in 18 gardens. This will allow us to assess predators for a longer time period than possible with observations. Due to security concerns, we cannot leave cameras in gardens overnight. To confirm differences in local and landscape management at each garden, we will establish a 20x20 m plot where we will measure ground cover, vegetation, and plant traits. We will count and assess flowering status all trees and shrubs. In eight randomly located 1x1 plots, we will measure vegetation height, percent cover of each plant species, identify and count all flowers, and measure ground cover (percent bare soil, grass, herbaceous plants, rocks, concrete, leaf litter, mulch, and straw). We will collect data on local management factors. We will use ArcGIS to classify landscape type cover surrounding each garden.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Project Impact: Over the past year, we finished manuscripts from ongoing projects and did a large amount of field work to collect data on vegetation, plant traits, pollinators, natural enemies, pollination, pest control, and gardener perceptions of garden management. 1) Major activities completed Publications We worked on two synthesis projects (trade-offs in ecosystem services, garden rarity); one was published in Ecological Applications, the other is in revisions at Ecology Letters. We submitted two additional manuscripts; one focused on ecological network structure for herbivores, parasitoids, and parasitims rates(Urban Ecosystems) and one focused on influences of preferences for a 'tidy garden' versus a 'messy garden' for pest control (PLoS One). We continued work on four manuscripts on (1) pollen collection and fruit set, (2) native plants impacts on arthropods, (3) ground cover influences on predatory arthropods, and (4) local and landscape drivers of plant-pollinator networks. Advisory Board We shared research plans and discussed a draft of our annual gardener report. Field, Greenhouse, Lab Research We conducted field research to study vegetation, plant traits, plant-pollinator networks and pollination, and natural enemy-herbivore networks and pest control. We conducted a greenhouse experiment to study soil impacts on plant traits. In the lab, we identified pollinators and natural enemies and measured plant traits. 2) Data collected During Y2 of the project, we collected data in 23 gardens to address our project hypotheses. Local and landscape factors. We measured vegetation height, plant cover, identified and counted flowers, and measured ground cover. We classified landscapes surrounding each garden. Plant traits: We characterized traits for 83 plant species that comprise ~70% of garden plant biomass. We measured traits related to plant structure (growth form, height, width), herbivore defence (specific leaf area, spines/trichomes), floral attraction (color, height, number), floral access (flower shape, size), and presence of extrafloral nectaries. Pollinator survey and traits. We surveyed pollinators in July 2021. We used elevated pan traps and netted for 4 hrs in each site. We identified all pollinators to order and bees to genus. Pollinator-plant networks. We identified plants where pollinators were netted to construct observation-based networks. Pollination. We conducted a pollination limitation experiment with jalapeño peppers. In each garden, we introduced greenhouse-raised peppers. Half experienced open pollination and half experienced a bagged treatment. We also conducted a handcross experiment in the greenhouse to test the self-compatibility of the jalapeño variety selected. We monitored fruit set, fruit weight, and seed number for all marked flowers in both experiments. Natural enemy survey and traits. We surveyed natural enemies in Jun and Aug on brassica and cucurbit plants. We collected all natural enemies and herbivores and are currently identifying arthropods collected. Pest control: We conducted a sentinel prey experiment. We introduced corn worm eggs, cabbage looper larvae, and pea aphids onto greenhouse-grown plants, placed plants in gardens, and counted before and 24h later to assess pest removal. Crop production and quality. We measured plant size, damage, floral production and duration, fruit number, fruit volume, and fruit damage twice between Apr-Sept. We surveyed plant damage on brassica and cucurbit plants surveyed for natural enemies. Soil, water manipulations. From Jul-Oct 2021 we ran a greenhouse experiment to assess how soil amendments and watering regimes impact growth and fruiting of kale, tomato, and jalapeños. Gardener perceptions of biodiversity and ecosystem services. To investigate how gardeners experience and understand biodiversity in their gardens, we conducted focus groups and individual interviews with gardeners. Focus group participants (n=7) took photos of their garden plots and discussed the topics captured by their photos. Interview participants (n=8) shared information about their gardening background, management preferences, and encounters with and knowledge of the biodiversity in their gardens. 3) Summary Statistics, Discussion of Results We quantified howlocal garden management and landscape filtersinfluence (a) functional traits of plants, pollinators, and natural enemies, (b) ecological networks, and (c) provisioning of pest control, pollination, and crop production services. We documented the following patterns: For plant traits, we found high diversity of plant species and traits in gardens. For example, flower number ranges from 0-2500, plant volume ranges from 52-45,000 cm2, and we documented more than 12 flower colors in the gardens. We also found that plant species richness in a garden is highly correlated with plant functional richness. In soil and water manipulation experiments, we found that for kale, smaller amounts of drip irrigation throughout the day was highly beneficial for growth, however specific leaf area (SLA) was low suggesting a trade-off in growth and plant defense.In tomatoes, organic fertilizers resulted in higher leaf defense (higher SLA) and more fruit production and flower to fruit turnover. Watering once per day was optimal for high fruit production and high defense traits. Jalapeño plants were hardy with the standard enriched soil treatment (no amendments) with less frequent watering (3x a week) leading to equally tall plants and high SLA. There were also no significant differences in fruit production and fruit size. Thus, jalapeño plants may not require additional amendments and watering regimes to produce well. In our plant-pollinator network study, we collected 1,494 arthropods from three orders - Hymenoptera (n=1166), Diptera (n=231), and Lepidoptera (n=52). We identified bees from five families and 22 genera. The most common bee families were Apidae (70.33%), Halictidae (21.70%) and Colletidae (2.49%) and most common genera were Apis (40.7%), Bombus (19.3%) and Halictus (11.0%). Initial network results indicate that neither local management nor landscape factors affect order-level plant-pollinator networks. We found that bee family and genus networks were affected by local factors (vegetation height, herbaceous species cover, mulch cover) and one landscape management factor (urban cover in 2 km). In the sentinel pest removal experiment, we found that predators removed 40% of eggs, 50% of larvae, and 50% of aphids, while bagged treatments experienced minimal prey disappearance or even aphid population growth. We found that egg removal increased with vegetation height in the garden, larvae removal increased with garden size, and that aphid removal was hindered by ant abundance. Our studies characterized how gardener social context and perceptions influenced the potential forimplementing management changesthat promote ecosystem services. These studies have determined that: Gardeners were most aware of pollinators as beneficial to their garden, and many explicitly planted flowers to attract pollinators. Some gardeners reported purchasing and releasing natural enemies like ladybeetles, but only gardeners with advanced agricultural education reported actively supporting natural enemies already in the garden. Most gardeners acknowledged the importance of using compost as a soil supplement, but only gardeners with advanced agricultural education reported explicitly managing the health of their soil by limiting intensive soil disturbances, such as machine tillage, and planting nitrogen fixing plants like legumes and other cover crops. 4) Key outcomes. In the second year of the study, we published four studies related to our project goals, supported three undergraduate theses, and made several presentations at national conferences, department seminars, and events for the general public.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Cohen H, Ponisio, L, Russell KA, Philpott SM, McFrederick QS. (2022) Floral resources shape parasite and pathogen dynamics in bees facing urbanization. Molecular Ecology 31: 2157-2171
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Cohen H, Egerer ME, Thomas S-S, Philpott SM. (2022) Local and landscape features constrain the trait and taxonomic diversity of urban bees. Landscape Ecology 37: 583-599
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Ivers NA, Jordan Z, Cohen H, Tripodi A, Brown M, Liere H, Lin BB, Philpott SM, Jha S. (2022) Parasitism of urban bumble influenced by pollinator taxonomic richness, local garden management, and surrounding impervious cover. Urban Ecosystems. in press. 10.1007/s11252-022-01211-0
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Ong TW-Y, Lin BB, Lucatero A, Cohen H, Bichier P, Egerer MH, Daniue A, Jha S, Philpott SM, Liere H. (2022) Rarity begets rarity: Social and environmental drivers of rare organisms in cities. Ecological Applications. In press. 10.1002/eap.2708
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Egerer ME, Philpott SM. Tidy and messy management alters natural enemy communities and pest control in urban agroecosystems. In Revisions at PLoS One
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Jha S, Egerer MH, Bichier P, Cohen H, Liere H, Lin BB, Lucatero A, Philpott SM. Dominance of ecosystem service synergies and landscape-mediation of biodiversity in urban agriculture. In Revisions at Ecology Letters
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Perfecto I, Philpott SM. Ants and ecosystem functions and services in urban areas: A reflection on a diverse literature. In Revisions at Myrmecological News
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Lucatero A, Smith NR, Bichier P, Liere H, Philpott SM. Shifts in host-parasitoid networks across garden management and urban landscape gradients. In Review at Urban Ecosystems
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Jha S, Jordan Z, McGilvray E, Cohen H, Bichier P, Egerer M, Liere H, Lin BB, Philpott SM, Jha S. Urban garden fruit production and pollen deposition depends on both local and landscape management. in prep for Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Lucatero A, Andrade S, Hernandez C, Philpott SM. Native plant impacts on flower visitors and predatory arthropod abundance and richness. In Prep For Environmental Entomology.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Liere H, Jha S, Lin BB, Philpott SM. Effect of ground cover on the abundance, species richness, and evenness of ground-dwelling natural enemies in urban community gardens. In Prep for Ecological Entomology.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Philpott SM, Hsu J, Kulikowski A, Lin BB, Liere H, Jha S. Plant-pollinator networks across garden gradients in urban landscapes. In Prep for Ecological Applications.
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Progress 05/01/20 to 04/30/21
Outputs
Target Audience:During the first year of this grant, our target audience included the scientific community, individuals and organizations involved in urban gardening, and graduate and undergraduate students. The scientific community informed by our project includes colleagues at UC Santa Cruz, Seattle University, U. of Texas Austin, and CSIRO (Australia), and colleagues and scientists we have reached at conferences in presentations. Continuing from our previous grant into the current project, over the reporting period, we published 9 papers in peer-reviewed journals and books, and have another 3 in revisions/review, and 5 in prep. We gave 3 presentations at national conferences including Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting. The project supported the completion of two undergraduate theses over the past year. Individuals and organizations involved in urban gardening are diverse and include government organizations (e.g. City of Santa Cruz, the City of San Jose, City of Sunnyvale), non-profit organizations (e.g. Tierras Milperas, Homeless Garden Project, Mid County Senior Center, Salinas Chinatown Garden), church gardens (e.g. Aptos Community Garden), as well as school gardens (e.g. UC Santa Cruz Alan Chadwick Garden, Monterrey Institute of International Studies, MEarth Garden at Carmel Valley Middle School). The gardeners at those organizations are from many ethnic and cultural backgrounds including from Mexico and Central America (including both mestizo and indigenous populations), Arab, Assyrian, Bosnian, Caucasian, African American, and European-American gardeners. Our gardener surveys with 187 gardeners in 2017 revealed 36 nationalities and >25 languages represented in the gardens. This array of ethnic diversity is typical of urban gardens, and provides a unique opportunity for understanding variable management practices, even within a relatively small geographic area, and for sharing results with groups of people with family and cultural networks that expand far beyond the study region. In the first year of our project, contact with gardeners was quite limited by COVID-19 restrictions; however, we did reach this audience by completing and distributing a 2020 report prepared for the gardeners and by creating a new Advisory Board (including leaders in the gardening community) for our project. Our target audience also includes students and others at our institutions who have heard presentations and who have been trained by the project. UC Santa Cruz is a Hispanic Serving Institution. UT also serves a large Hispanic student population, currently representing 17.5% of the student body, and comprising a 10-year pattern of consecutive increase. Seattle University is a small, liberal arts college. During the first year of the project, we worked to train four PhD students (2 at UCSC, 2 at U of Texas; 3 women, 2 students of color) and 2 undergraduates (1 woman of color) in project related to the grant goals. Changes/Problems:As will be commonplace in this year's reporting, we had major set-backs related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We had hoped to launch our field research and begin studies aimed at sampling natural enemies, pollinators, pest control, pollination in summer 2020. However, due to the pandemic and research restrictions, our 2020 field season was completely cancelled. The UC Santa Cruz campus had only remote instruction from 3/11/20-8/20/21. Although some research was permitted during this period, our research system requires includes contact with many people (a vast majority elderly and/or minoritized populations) in 25 different gardens spread around a relatively large area. Thus, we decided against doing any field research to protect our health and that of our students and gardeners. We have returned to normal operations as of June 2021 and are currently conducting the research planned for Y1of our grant. We were able to minimize grant spending during Y1 and only used funding to keep two staff members (one at UCSC and one at CSIRO) funded. We anticipate needing to apply for a no-cost extension in order to complete the grant deliverables. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The research has provided opportunities for training and professional development for several students based both at UC Santa Cruz and U of Texas. In total, for the publications and projects that were published or submitted during the first year, we included a total of five PhD students in the research (4 women, 2 students of color) and 5 undergraduates (3 women, 2 students of color). Two of the undergraduates completed senior theses or internships related to the project. Four PhD students and 2 undergraduates were actively involved in the work since May 2020. We included students in all aspects of the research including data collection (from the field or from the literature), data analysis, writing, and presentations. All students learned valuable skills in field methods (e.g. collecting vegetation data, insects, recognizing plant species, quantitative social research), and also in data entry, data analysis, presentation techniques, and collaboration. All students also participated in weekly lab meetings and were exposed to larger issues related to agroecology and temperate and tropical ecological research. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have distributed our research in both the scientific and gardener communities. The scientific community has been informed by our research in publications and presentations. Continuing from our previous grant into the current project, over the reporting period, we published 9 papers in peer-reviewed journals and books, and have another 3 in revisions/review, and 5 in prep. We gave 3 presentations at national conferences including Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting. For the gardener community, in the first year of our project, contact with gardeners was quite limited by COVID-19 restrictions, however, we did reach this audience by completing and distributing a 2020 report for gardeners and by creating an Advisory Board for our project. We continued to update our project website. Project Website: Our project website: www.urbangardenecology.com Project Website: Our lab website: https://philpottlab.sites.ucsc.edu/ What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In this next year, we will work within 23 study sites in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Monterey Counties to address our grant deliverables. Local and landscape factors. At each site, we will establish a 20x20 m plot where we will measure ground cover, vegetation, and plant traits. We will count and assess flowering status all trees and shrubs. In eight randomly located 1x1 plots, we will measure vegetation height, percent cover of each plant species, identify and count all flowers, and measure ground cover (percent bare soil, grass, herbaceous plants, rocks, concrete, leaf litter, mulch, and straw). We will collect data on local management factors. We will use ArcGIS to classify landscape type cover surrounding each garden. Plant traits: We will characterize a suite of plant traits for those plant species that comprise ~70% of the biomass found in gardens (~75 species). We will measure traits related to plant structure (growth form, height, width), herbivore defence (specific leaf area, presence of spines and/or trichomes), floral attraction (color, max height, number), floral access (flower shape, size), and presence of extrafloral nectaries. We will collect info using field measurements, lab measurements, and literature/database searches.In the field, we will survey three individuals of each listed species across three different gardens. Pollinator survey and traits. We will survey pollinators once between Apr-Sept. We will use elevated pan traps and will net for 4 person hours to survey bees, butterflies, and flies. For the most common species of bees, butterflies, and flies, we will quantify response and effect traits. We will leverage an existing pollinator traits database including nesting habits, and diet breadth complemented with specimen measurements to estimate body and wing size (typically measured via intertegular distance), mouth type and size, and pollen-carrying (scopal) size and location. Pollinator-plant networks. We will construct observation- and pollen-based pollinator-plant networks by identifying plants where pollinators are netted. Immediately after netting, specimens will be placed in clean kill jars and their pollen collecting segment (scopa or corbicula) will be removed, washed, and gently vortexed in ethanol to dislodge pollen. We will create pollen-based networks using light microscopy and existing pollen reference collections from the region. For all pollinator species with 5 individuals per site, we will dye grains with fuschin, mount grains on a slide with glycerol, scan at 20-40x zoom, and compare with our reference collection to identify to species. Pollination. We will conduct a pollination limitation experiment with jalapeño peppers. In each garden, we will introduce 10 greenhouse-raised peppers where 5 will experience open-pollination (opened for bloom), and 5 will experience a cross-hand pollination treatment (opened for bloom and supplemented with outcross pollen, representing optimum pollination service). Flowers will be marked and plants returned to the greenhouse; upon maturation they will be weighed and assessed for yield and marketability. We will examine effect sizes in seed, fruit size, and weight between open and outcross plants. Natural enemy survey and traits. We will survey natural enemies twice between Apr-Sept. We will conduct visual surveys of all natural enemies seen on, hovering above, or walking on the ground below ten randomly selected Brassica and Cucurbit in each study site. We will place natural enemies in vials with ethanol and take these to the lab for identification. For common natural enemies, we will quantify a set of response and effect traits. We will measure body size for 10 randomly selected specimens, and determine (based on literature or field observations) voltinism, diet breadth (specialists, generalists), dispersal mode (flying, non-flying), hunting strategy (sitting, chasing), and hunting strata (ground, vegetation). Natural enemy-herbivore networks. We will construct observation-based and molecular-based natural enemy-herbivore networks. We will construct observation-based networks with co-occurrence data from natural enemy surveys. On plants where we survey natural enemies, we will survey abundance and identity of herbivores (e.g., cabbage aphids, cabbage loopers). We will determine feeding links using qualitative diet information from the literature and host identity from our lab-reared parasitoids. For all natural enemy species for which we have 5 replicates per site, we will extract DNA from each individual and pool samples by species, site, and time. Pest control: We will examine pest control with a sentinel prey experiment. We will introduce crop herbivores (e.g., corn worm eggs, cabbage looper larvae, pea aphids) onto greenhouse-grown bell bean and brassica plants, place plants in the gardens, and count before and 24h later to assess pest removal. We will put mesh bags over half of the plants to prohibit predator and parasitoid access and will leave others open to natural enemies. We will calculate predation effect sizes based on removal from open and bagged plants. We will collect all remaining, eggs, larvae, and aphids and will rear them for parasitoids. Crop production and quality. To assess crop production and crop quality, we will measure plant size, damage, floral production and duration, fruit number, fruit volume, and fruit damage twice between Apr-Sept. We will survey plant damage on Brassica and Cucurbits where we sample natural enemies and herbivores. For Brassica, we will select one leaf per plant and estimate leaf area damaged by chewing, sucking and mining herbivores. For Cucurbits, we will quantify floral and fruit production, as well as fruit damage. We will measure herbivory on two leaves per plant as this may alter floral bloom quality and thus fruit production and quality. Soil and water manipulation experiments. We will conduct greenhouse experiments to test how soil amendments and watering (irrigation vs. hand watering) impact plants traits of interest (described above). We will add soil amendments to pots with kale, tomatoes, zucchini, and jalapeño peppers and will monitor impacts on plant traits (from seedling to flowering and fruiting). We will create four soil amendment treatments: a) potting soil control, b) enhanced with organic fertilizer, c) enhanced with seaweed compound, and d) with both amendments and will hold water and temperature constant. We will also test four different water regimes to replicate what gardeners are considering in the community gardens: a) drip irrigation daily, b) drip irrigation every 2 days, hand watering 2 times a week, and d) hand watering weekly. We will hold the soil constant across all samples. We will measure plant height, volume, specific leaf area, flower number, and flowering duration, similar to our fieldwork methods, and will additionally destructively sample above and below ground biomass.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Project Impact: Over the past year, we did not collect new field data, but continued to work towards the project goals. We analyzed data on vegetation, biocontrol, pollination, plant-pollinator networks, natural enemy-herbivore networks, gardener demographics, plant composition, and pest management attitudes. 1) Major activities completed We worked on two syntheses(trade-offs in ecosystem services, maintenance of rare species in gardens) using data from 2013 to 2019. We used a plant database to begin to examine plant trait diversity in gardens. We identified parasitoids from herbivores collected in 2018 and completed two manuscripts examining how natural enemy-herbivore networks are affected by local garden management and landscape features. We worked with data on pollinator foraging, pollen collection, pollination services, as well as flower to fruit turnover, to capture pollination services within the gardens. We completed a pilot experiment to examine how wood chip mulching affects natural enemies and pest control. We created an advisory board and held our first meeting in April 2021. 2) Data collected We used our existing plant database to examine plant traits and classified plants according to growth form and native status within California. We examined natural-enemy-herbivore co-occurrence networks associated with Brassica oleracea. We investigated how local garden management and landscape composition affect (1) the abundance of B. oleracea herbivores and their natural enemies, (2) the natural-enemy: herbivore ratio, and (3) natural-enemy-herbivore co-occurrence network metrics. We sampled herbivores and natural enemies in B. oleracea plants in 24 vegetable gardens and collected information on garden characteristics and land-use cover. We quantified ecological network structure for herbivorous insects and their parasitoids, and correlates to parasitism rates. We sampled B. oleracea herbivores at 22 gardens and reared and identified parasitoids. We examined relationships between local resource density, landscape composition, pollinator abundance and richness, and pollination. We used a replicated, experimental approach to evaluate the reproductive success of jalapeno peppers across gardens and conducted a greenhouse experiment to evaluate the benefits of insect-mediated pollination to pepper reproduction. To understand how foraging patterns and pollen preferences are influenced by urban landscapes, we examined if bees visit plants grown within urban gardens and assessed relationships between local floral resources, urban land cover, and pollen collection patterns. We targeted a well-studied, essential native pollinator in this region and analyzed pollen on the bodies of individuals collected in gardens. We tested how aesthetic preferences for a 'tidy garden' versus a 'messy garden' influence insect pests, natural enemies, and pest control services. We manipulated gardens by mimicking a popular 'tidy' management practice - woodchip mulching -, and simulating 'messy' gardens by adding 'weedy' plants to pathways. Then, we measured differences in natural enemy biodiversity (abundance, richness, composition), and pest removal as a result of the tidy/messy manipulation. We investigated how socio-demographic factors and experience affect whether gardeners report having a pest problem and which pest management practices they use. We surveyed 187 gardeners from 18 different gardens in three counties. We also collected information about gardener socio-demographic factors (age, gender, ethnicity), as well as education, and years of experience in agriculture. 3) Summary Statistics and Discussion of results Our studies have quantified howlocal garden management and landscape filtersinfluence (a) functional traits of plants, pollinators, and natural enemies, (b) ecological networks, and (c) provisioning of pest control, pollination, and crop production services. We have documented the following patterns: For plant traits, we found more non-native plant species (268) than native plant species (26) within the gardens. Crops were more likely to be non-native, and weeds were more likely to be native plants. Gardens with large plots had fewer plant species and fewer native species. The percent of native plant species increased in gardens with more trees and shrubs but declined with more canopy cover. Plant richness and native plant richness increased with neighborhood wealth, confirming the "luxury effect" for our study gardens. In ecological network studies related to natural enemies and pest control, we found that natural enemy-herbivore networks respond to flower species richness and amount nearby agricultural habitat; areas with high agriculture have less complex networks. In our host-parasitoid network study, we collected 9 herbivore morphospecies from which we reared 23 parasitoid morphospecies. We found that local management and landscape composition influenced host abundance and parasitism, while only local factors affected network structure. Higher network interaction richness correlated with enhanced parasitism rates for two host species and lower parasitism rates for one host species. In the bee foraging study, we found that greater landscape-level urban cover and greater plant species richness in the garden drove higher within-garden pollen collection. We found that B. vosnesenskii preferred ornamental plant species over crop species. In the pollination study, we found that jalapeno fruit weight and seed number was significantly greater with insect-mediated pollination. We found that jalapeno seed number increased significantly with herbaceous plant richness and number of perennial trees and shrubs, but decreased with natural landscape cover. We found that higher pollinator richness enhanced seed number in floral-dense gardens. There was a positive relationship between pollinator abundance and seed number, but it weakened in gardens with more flowers. Our studies have also investigated howchanges in managementalter species traits and network structure and thus determine how management can be designed to boost pest control, pollination, and crop production services. Specifically, we found the following: The tidy/messy manipulation strongly affected natural enemy composition, but did not significantly alter natural enemy or herbivore abundance or richness. The messy manipulation immediately boosted egg pest removal, while mulch already present in the system lowered egg removal. Our studies also characterized how gardener social context and perceptions influenced the potential forimplementing management changesthat promote ecosystem services. These studies have determined the following: Gardener demographics, and in particular nationality, gender, and motivations for gardening, have strong influences on plant richness and plant composition, indicating that gardens with diverse human populations likely have more diverse plant communities. The majority of gardeners reported having pests in their plots - but their ethnicity, the amount of time they spend in the gardens, and whether they work in agricultural-related employment or not - influenced the likelihood of reporting pests. We found that the majority of gardeners use curative, non-synthetic practices for managing pests, but that some use preventive practices, while others don't implement any pest-control practices. The likelihood of using practices that are curative depended on gardeners' ethnicity, the amount of time they spend in the gardeners, and their gender. 4) Key outcomes. In the first year of the study, we were able to publish nine studies related to our project goals, support two undergraduate theses, and make three presentations at national conferences and present two department seminars. We also created our Garden Advisory Board for our research project and made detailed plans for launching field research in 2021.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Cohen H, Philpott SM, Liere H, Lin BB, & Jha S (2020). The relationship between pollinator community and pollination services is mediated by floral abundance in urban landscapes. Urban Ecosystems, 1-16. DOI 10.1007/s11252-020-01024-z
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Cohen H, McFrederick Q, Philpott SM. (2020) Environment shapes the microbiome of the Blue Orchard Bee, Osmia lignaria. Molecular Ecology 80(4):897-907. doi: 10.1007/s00248-020-01549-y
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Egerer MH, Liere H, Lucatero A, Philpott SM. (2020) Local and landscape drivers of plant damage in urban agroecosystems. Ecosphere 11(3):e03074
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Liere H, Egerer M, Sanchez C, Bichier P, & Philpott SM. (2020) Social Context Influence on Urban Gardener Perceptions of Pests and Management Practices. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 4, 162.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Mayorga I, Bichier P, Philpott SM. (2020) Local and landscape drivers of bird abundance, species richness, and trait composition in urban agroecosystems. Urban Ecosystems 23: 495505
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
OConnell M, Jordan Z, McGilvray E, Cohen H, Liere H, Lin BB, Philpott SM & Jha S. (2020). Reap what you sow: local plant composition mediates bumblebee foraging patterns within urban garden landscapes. Urban Ecosystems, 24: 391404
- Type:
Book Chapters
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Philpott SM, Jha S, Lucatero A, MH Egerer, Liere H. (2020) Complex ecological interactions and ecosystem services in urban agroecosystems. In Egerer MH, Cohen H, editors. Urban Agroecology: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Understand the Science, Practice, and Movement. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, Boca Raton, Florida.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Philpott SM, Bichier P, Egerer M, Cohen H, Cohen R, Liere H, Jha S, Lin BB. (2020) Gardener demographics, experience, and motivations drive differences in plant species richness and composition in urban gardens. Ecology and Society 25:4
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Philpott SM, Lucatero A, Bichier P, Egerer MH, Lin BB, Jha S, Liere H. (2020) Natural enemy-herbivore networks along local management and landscape gradients in urban agroecosystems. Ecological Applications. 30(8): e02201, https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2201
- Type:
Book Chapters
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Liere, H. and M. Egerer. (2020). Ecology of Insects and Other Arthropods in Urban Agroecosystems. In: Barbosa, P. (editor) Nature and Challenges of Urban Ecology. CAB International
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Cohen H, McFrederick Q, Russell K, Ponisio L, Philpott SM. Floral resources shape parasite and pathogen dynamics in bees facing urbanization. In review (Molecular Ecology)
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Cohen H, Egerer ME, Thomas S-S, Philpott SM. Local and landscape drivers of bee functional traits in urban gardens in the California Central Coast. Basic and Applied Ecology
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Egerer ME, Philpott SM. Tidy and messy management alters natural enemy communities and pest control in urban agroecosystems. in review at Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Ivers N, Jordan Z, Tran E, Cohen H, Bichier P, Egerer M, Liere H, Lin BB, Philpott SM. Floral resources and local urbanization patterns mediate native bee parasitism rates. Urban Ecosystems
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Jha S, Jordan Z, McGilvray E, Cohen H, Bichier P, Egerer M, Liere H, Lin BB, Philpott SM. Urban garden fruit production and pollen deposition depends on both local and landscape management. in prep for Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Jha S, Egerer M, Cohen H, Liere H, Lucatero A, Bichier P, Lin BB, Philpott SM. Ecosystem service synergies dominate urban food systems, while landscape composition mediates biodiversity and service provision by mobile animals in prep for Global Change Ecology
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Lin BB, Cohen H, Liere H, Lucatero H, Ong TW-Y, Bichier P, Jha S, Philpott SM. Does rarity beget rarity in urban gardens? in prep for Global Change Biology
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Lucatero A, Smith NR, Bichier P, Liere H, Philpott SM. Shifts in host-parasitoid networks across garden management and urban landscape gradients. Urban Ecosystems. in prep
- Type:
Theses/Dissertations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Smith N (2020) Local and landscape drivers of parasitoid-host networks in urban agroecosystems. Undergraduate Thesis. Environmental Studies Department. U. of California, Santa Cruz
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Hernandez C (2020) Native and non-native plants in California urban community gardens: richness, relative abundance, and composition. Undergraduate Thesis. Environmental Studies Department. U. of California, Santa Cruz
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Liere et al. (2021). Insect-mediated ecosystem services in urban community gardens. North Caroline State University, Entomology Department Seminar Series. February 2021 (online)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Philpott SM, Bichier P, Egerer M (2020). Tidy vs. messy gardens: Implications for natural enemy and herbivore communities and pest control services. Oral presentation at Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting (Online).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Philpott SM (2020). Tidy vs. messy gardens: Implications for natural enemy and herbivore communities and pest control services. Entomology Dept. Seminar. Purdue University
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Jha S, Egerer M, Cohen H, Liere H, Lucatero A, Bichier P, Lin B, Philpott SM (2020). Tradeoffs and synergies in biodiversity and ecosystem service provision across rapidly urbanizing landscapes. Oral presentation at Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting (Online).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Ivers N, Jha S (2020). Drivers of a parasitism in B. vosnesenskii visiting California urban gardens. Oral presentation at Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting (Online).
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Project Website: Our project website: www.urbangardenecology.com
Project Website: Our lab website: https://philpottlab.sites.ucsc.edu/
Both websites were updated in 2020-2021
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