文章基本信息

标题：Homeowner Associations as a Vehicle for Promoting Native Urban Biodiversity
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作者：Susannah B Lerman ; Victoria Kelly Turner ; Christofer Bang 等
期刊名称：Ecology and Society
印刷版ISSN：1708-3087
电子版ISSN：1708-3087
出版年度：2012
卷号：17
期号：4
出版社：The Resilience Alliance
摘要：The loss of habitat due to suburban and urban development represents one of the greatest threats to biodiversity.Conservation developments have emerged as a key player for reconciling new ex-urban residential development with ecosystemservices. However, as more than half of the world population lives in urban and suburban developments, identifying conservationpartners to facilitate retrofitting existing residential neighborhoods becomes paramount. Homeowner associations (HOA) managea significant proportion of residential developments in the United States, which includes the landscape design for yards andgardens. These areas have the potential to mitigate the loss of urban biodiversity when they provide habitat for native wildlife.Therefore, the conditions and restrictions imposed upon the homeowner by the HOA could have profound effects on the localwildlife habitat. We explored the potential of HOAs to promote conservation by synthesizing research from three monitoringprograms from Phoenix, Arizona. We compared native bird diversity, arthropod diversity, and plant diversity betweenneighborhoods with and without a HOA. Neighborhoods belonging to HOAs had significantly greater bird and plant diversity,although insect diversity did not differ. The institutional framework structuring HOAs, including sanctions for enforcementcoupled with a predictable maintenance regime that introduces regular disturbance, might explain why neighborhoods with aHOA had greater bird diversity. For neighborhoods with a HOA, we analyzed landscape form and management practices. Welinked these features with ecological function and suggested how to modify management practices by adopting strategies fromthe Sustainable Sites Initiative, an international sustainable landscaping program, to help support biodiversity in current andfuture residential landscapes.
关键词：CAP LTER; conservation development; homeowner associations; residential landscapes; Sustainable Sites;Initiative; urban biodiversity