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Although urban domestic gardens hold great significance for biodiversity support in cities, these habitats have been relatively insufficiently studied, especially in developing country contexts. This paper assesses the composition, diversity, density and distribution of plant vegetation in urban domestic gardens in the rapidly expanding south Indian city of Bangalore. Overall species diversity is high, with 1,668 trees from 91 species, as well as 192 species of herbs and shrubs encountered from a total sample of 328 urban single domestic gardens and shared apartment gardens distributed across the city. The majority of species were uncommon, found in less than 5 % of all sampled locations. A high proportion of about 30 % of all species had uses as food or as spices, medicinal properties, and/or religious significance. In general, large shared apartment gardens and single domestic gardens had a greater number of trees with larger size, and greater tree and herb/shrub diversity compared to small shared apartment gardens and small to moderate sized single domestic gardens. Shared apartment gardens tended to harbor relatively distinct sets of species, especially trees, palms and plants with largely ornamental significance, while single domestic gardens contained a greater proportion of flowering and medicinal plants used in daily worship, as well as fruit bearing and spice bearing plants and trees. Residents observed a wide range of other animal and insect species in their gardens, but also indicated a decrease in wildlife biodiversity over time. The majority of residents observed some cultural practices associated with feeding of urban wildlife and insects including the provision of rice and water for birds, and of sugar for ants. The results of this research provide a comprehensive description of plant diversity and distribution in single domestic gardens and shared apartment gardens of different sizes, which can be very important for citizen groups, planners and administrators working towards urban planting and greening in the south Indian city of Bangalore. They also supplement the extremely limited information currently available on urban domestic gardens outside of cities in the west. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The division between rural and urban sectors of the landscape in many parts of the world is increasingly blurred. House-lot or homegardens offer a perspective on understanding rural-urban linkages since they are frequently a landscape feature in both settings and the exchanges of their products link the two. House-lot gardens are an under-researched component of the agricultural repertoires of smallholders in many parts of the world. Urban house-lot gardens in particular, have until recently not received much attention despite their critical importance to urban livelihoods. This paper presents findings from research on house-lot gardens in rural and urban zones of Santarém, Pará, Brazil, one of Amazonia's largest municipalities. The research demonstrates that garden products are important for household subsistence, but even more importantly product exchanges between rural and urban kin households help sustain critical social networks that subsidize urban life. Gardens are a link between urban and rural settings as products, germplasm, and household members move between the two. People are urban and rural at the same time which demonstrates that households can be multi-local. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing a public response model of soundscape in parks can provide a basis for the optimization of soundscape design. Three representative urban landscape garden parks were selected in Hangzhou, in which a number of evaluation points were chosen along soundwalk paths. Binaural sounds at each evaluation point were sampled by an artificial head and the landscapes of horizontal view and vertical view were obtained by panoramic photos and satellite images, respectively. An evaluation on soundscape of each point was conducted in laboratory based on virtual reality technology, and the correlations between 17 acoustic indicators, 35 landscape indicators and soundscape satisfaction degree were analyzed. The public response model of soundscape satisfaction degree in parks was developed. Final indicators entering the model were the loudness level of sound, the aggregation index of water, the largest patch index of water and the landscape shape index of roads, and their standard regression coefficients were − 0.666, − 0.561, 0.523 and − 0.310, respectively. The weights of the influences of acoustic and landscape indicators on the satisfaction were 32.3% and 67.7%. When the percentage of vegetation area in park exceeds 15%, its contribution to satisfaction degree will be close to a fixed value (reflected in the constant term of the model). The soundscape satisfaction can be effectively improved by reducing the loudness level of sound in parks, increasing the area of the largest water patch with scattered water patches around it, and reducing the shape complexity of road patches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban green infrastructure, such as gardens, can mitigate some of the consequences of climate change, e.g. reducing flash-flooding or urban heat islands. Green infrastructure, however, may itself be vulnerable to a changing climate, and not all garden and landscape plant taxa will remain viable under weather scenarios predicted for the future. It has been suggested that cultivated forms of garden plants (hybrids and selected varieties) particularly, will be susceptible to enhanced stress associated with more frequent flooding, drought and rapid oscillations between these hydrological extremes; thus potentially limiting the range of taxa that can be used in gardens in the future. This research explored this concept by evaluating cultivated forms of the common garden plant – Primula, and testing whether these were less resilient to the effects of hydrological extremes than their progenitor species, Primula vulgaris. The results support this hypothesis and demonstrated that cultivated taxa were more susceptible to the hydrological stresses imposed than Primula vulgaris. Interestingly though, those cultivars that superficially resembled the parent species (Primula 'Cottage Cream') showed more stress tolerance than others with larger or more ornamental flowers, suggesting a 'gradient of susceptibility' within the hybrids. The notion that the most flamboyant cultivars are sacrificing stress tolerance for traits linked with aesthetics is discussed. The data, albeit on one genus only, has implications for the design of gardens/ornamental landscapes for the future and calls for more attention within breeding programmes to enhance abiotic stress tolerance within garden and landscape plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban biodiversity is essential to creating resilient and sustainable cities. Nevertheless, there is paucity of data on the characterization of microhabitat effects on species/trait diversity and diversity-functional relationships in urban landscapes especially in developing countries. The objectives of this study were to; 1) analyze tree species diversity and composition of urban green space (UGS) types and urban zones, (2) describe the life history diversity of UGS types and urban zones and 3) examine the links between species and life history trait diversity and species productivity (carbon storage) in Kumasi, Ghana. Stratified random sampling was adopted in surveying 470 sampling plots and six streets of lengths ranging from 50 m to 1 km. About 176 tree species in 46 families were recorded within Kumasi. About 96 species were in an adjacent natural forest located at the outskirts of the city. Home gardens, institutional compounds, and public parks had the highest species richness of 76, 75 and 71, respectively while urban rangelands and farmlands were the least species rich with 6 and 23, respectively. Species richness (S) in the peri-urban (LDUZ, S = 142) and core urban (HDUZ, S = 108) were significantly different (Χ2 = 15.7, p < 0.0001, n = 1). Native species richness was lowest in the core urban area and highest in the natural forest. Pioneers and anthropochory dispersed species were the most abundant, suggesting that this urban landscape is shaped by both environment and social filters. Tree species diversity and distribution depend on the type of UGS and portrays a perturbed landscape in the early seres of succession with the overall ecosystem function sustained by both species and life history trait diversities. The implications of these findings for improving urban biodiversity conservation and overall urban sustainability are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As urbanization increases, the identification of nest predators becomes important for avian conservation and management of urban wildlife communities. We investigated bird nest predation using artificial nests in urban areas of the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province of South Africa. From June 2013 through February 2014 we installed seventy-five artificial nests in 25 suburban gardens in the Ethekwini and Msunduzi municipalities of KZN. Euplectes spp. nests were used and baited with two quail-sized, hand-made, silicon eggs. These were placed in residential gardens and monitored by camera traps for 2-weeks in winter, spring and summer respectively. Generally bird nesting occurs throughout the year in KZN's subtropical climate, with some avoidance during the autumn season. Therefore, experiments were not conducted during autumn, as fresh nests were not available for use. Overall the rate of predation on artificial nests was 25 % ( n = 19), with vervet monkeys Ceropithecus aethiops pygerythrus predating 20 % ( n = 17) of the nests while domestic cats Felis catus predated 3 % ( n = 2) of nests. Nest predation was significantly higher in the winter season, with 79 % of depredations occurring in winter ( n = 15), 16 % in spring ( n = 3) and 5 % in summer ( n = 1), and in areas with less canopy cover. Our results suggest that vervet monkeys may have a negative impact on nesting birds in urban environments, however, in order to assess the rate of predation experiments on natural nests coupled with information on fledgling success is deemed necessary to investigate avian population declines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trees in urban areas are important sources of ecosystem services and benefits. In most towns the bulk of urban biodiversity, and trees specifically, are found in homestead gardens. But there is only limited understanding of the tree holdings in such gardens, and how they vary within and between towns, especially for developing countries where rapid urbanisation and high poverty influence the use of and reliance on land and local resources. We report on the nature of tree holdings in private gardens of poorer suburbs in three medium-sized towns along a gradient of decreasing mean annual rainfall in northern South Africa. A total of 3 217 trees were enumerated across 450 randomly selected homesteads. Most (90 %) households had at least one tree on their homestead, with an average of 7.7 ± 6.1 trees. Most householders had planted the trees themselves. The density of trees declined along the moisture gradient. Within towns, tree density was positively related to garden size, which in turn was related to relative affluence and age of the suburb. Newer and poorer suburbs had the fewest trees per household. Sixty-two tree species were recorded, which were dominated by alien species, especially fruit trees. There was no relationship between the moisture gradient and tree species richness per household, but within towns there was a difference between suburbs, being lowest in the newest suburbs. Numbers of trees and species per household was positively related to age of the household head. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the midst of the current economic crisis, there is renewed interest in transforming vacant lots into food-producing gardens. This study analyzed whether vacant lots are suitable for food production, by comparing the soil nematode food webs and nutrient pools of vacant lots and community gardens in two post-industrial U.S. cities, Akron and Cleveland, Ohio. Twelve vacant lots and 12 community gardens were examined in the two cities. All six Akron community gardens were established just prior to the initiation of this study, whereas the six in Cleveland were 15-30 years old. Soil pH, texture, moisture, organic matter, mineral nitrogen content, microbial biomass, and nematode communities were measured in both cities. Soil decomposition rate was also measured in Cleveland. Results show that the soils of vacant lots surpassed those of the newly-established Akron gardens and were equal to the soils of the well-established Cleveland gardens in the amount of ammonium-nitrogen, total nematode population, genus diversity, and maturity and structure indices. The soils of the vacant lots were lower than the community gardens in the amounts of soil moisture, organic matter, and nitrate-nitrogen, which we associate with the addition of water, compost, fertilizer, and tilling in the gardens. No significant difference was found between community gardens and vacant lots in microbial biomass, decomposition rate, or nematode enrichment index, which seems to indicate that vacant lots are equal to community gardens in nutrient availability and nutrient cycling. We conclude that barring any contamination, the soil in vacant lots maybe suitable for the establishment of food gardens, which can provide many desirable ecosystem services and enhance human well-being. We also find that the disturbance associated with tillage and conversion of a vacant lot into a community garden has short-term ramifications for both nematode food webs and mineral-nitrogen content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A serious barrier to our understanding of urban ecosystems is a lack of information on the ecology of soils organisms of green spaces within large cities. This study addresses this gap by providing baseline survey data on the biodiversity of soil macrofauna in urban parks and domestic gardens of London, UK. In April and June 2004, the soil macrofauna were handsorted from soil cores in eleven parks and gardens of various sizes in central London. Five taxa were identified to species (Lumbricidae, Isopoda, Diplopoda, Chilopoda and Formicidae). The biodiversity value of the two main habitats (horticultural borders and mown grass lawns) was assessed and the influence of a range of environmental factors on species density (number of species per unit area) examined. The species densities of the studied soil invertebrates in the urban gardens were comparable with those found in natural ecosystems, although plant borders contained significantly more species than lawns. Borders had higher levels of plant nutrients, higher floristic diversity and lower levels of micronutrients and heavy metals than lawns. Significant predictor variables of species densities in the plant borders were the percentage of leaf litter cover, sampling month and soil pH. Species densities in the lawns were significantly correlated with the distance of the samples from the edge of the lawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]