Multitrophic Consequences of Novel Plant Assemblages in Urban Ecosystems

几个世纪以来，来自其他大陆的动植物一直有意或无意地被带到美国。它们中的许多已经建立起来，创造了由以前从未相互作用过的物种组成的生态系统。人们对园艺的偏好已经把曾经在住宅景观中支持生命的本地植物群落变成了与本地生物没有历史关系的引进植物的集合。如果引进的植物与其所取代的本地植物具有生态等效物，那么管理景观中的生态系统功能将保持与自然区域一样高的水平。但是，如果引进的植物不能像本地植物那样维持生命，那么人类工作、生活和耕作的地方（远远超过美国土地面积的50%）的动物多样性将会减少。这将是不可持续的，因为生物多样性推动生态系统功能，而功能性生态系统产生维持人口的自然服务。本项目通过比较由本地植物组成的住宅景观中的食物网与由引进植物组成的景观中的食物网，探讨了植物支持食物网的能力。研究的重点是鸟类和它们的昆虫猎物，因为它们都是食物网稳定性和多样性的优秀指标，因此也是整体生物多样性的指标。以卡罗莱纳山雀为研究对象，该研究将测量由亚洲植物创造的景观如何改变：1)昆虫群落；2)筑巢山雀的饮食；3)山雀在人居景观中的繁殖成功率。这项研究将外联与科学结合起来，通过对一个公民科学项目“邻里守望”（Neighborhood Nestwatch）注册的房产进行研究。研究结果将发表在初级和通俗文献中，以各级环境专门知识的土地所有者和决策者为对象。公众不了解植物和以植物为食的昆虫是如何使鸟类等更有魅力的脊椎动物在城市环境中生存的。这项研究将有助于提供这样的理解，这是可持续发展的关键，因为公众将决定未来城市生态系统的样子。在这项研究的过程中，学生们将接受生态学方面的培训，并具备应对未来重大环境挑战所需的技能。

Plants and animals from other continents have been intentionally or accidentally brought to the U.S. for centuries. Many of them have become established, creating ecosystems made of species that have never before interacted with each other. Horticultural preferences have transformed the native plant communities that once supported life in residential landscapes into a collection of introduced plants that have no history with native organisms. If introduced plants are the ecological equivalents of the native plants they replace, ecosystem function in managed landscapes will remain as high as in natural areas. But if introduced plants do not support life as well as native plants, the diversity of animals where humans work, live and farm (well over 50% of the U.S. land area) will be reduced. This would be unsustainable because biodiversity drives ecosystem function, and functional ecosystems produce the natural services that sustain human populations. This project addresses the ability of plants to support food webs by comparing food webs in residential landscapes comprised of native plants with food webs in landscapes built from introduced plants. The research focuses on birds and their insect prey because both are excellent indicators of food web stability and diversity, and thus of overall biodiversity. Using Carolina chickadees, the study will measure how landscapes created from Asian plants alter: 1) insect communities; 2) the diets of nesting chickadees; and 3) the breeding success of chickadees in residential landscapes.This study integrates outreach with science by conducting research on properties enrolled in Neighborhood Nestwatch, a citizen science program. Results will be published in the primary and popular literature to target landowners and policy-makers at all levels of environmental expertise. The public lacks an understanding of how plants and the insects that eat them enable more charismatic vertebrates, such as birds, to exist in urban environments. This study will help provide such understanding, which is key to sustainability because it is the public who will determine what urban ecosystems will look like in the future. In the process of this research, students will be trained in ecology and equipped with the skills needed to tackle major environmental challenges in the future.