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Impacts of Urban Greenspace Management on Beneficial Insect Communities

Spring, MaLisa R
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492682461719594

Abstract Details

2017, Master of Science, Ohio State University, Entomology.
Vacant land in cities potentially could offer important habitat for pollinators. As part of the economic downturn and ensuing foreclosures, Cleveland, Ohio, USA maintains over 1,400 hectares of vacant land. The goal of this thesis is to determine management strategies that benefit the overall beneficial insect community. Thus, this thesis is broken into three chapters: 1) comparing the impact of rain garden installations on predatory and pollinating insects, 2) comparing the impact of prairie installations and alternative mowing schemes on native and exotic bee communities, and 3) documenting the bee species richness found in inner-city Cleveland. The first chapter focuses on rain garden installations. Storm water runoff causes sewer overflows in areas with outdated combined sewer systems. To mitigate these issues, retrofit green infrastructure strategies are used as partial remedies, with anticipation of additional ecosystem services such as supporting beneficial arthropods. Infiltrative rain gardens were installed on formerly vacant land in the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland, OH. The abundance of pollinators and predatory insects within urban vacant lots and rain gardens were sampled June, July, and August 2014-2016 in six rain gardens and eight vacant lots using bee bowls and sticky cards. A total of 3,005 bees were collected from bee bowls and 23,332 beneficial insects were collected from sticky cards across all years. Overall, there was no difference in beneficial arthropod abundances in rain gardens compared to resource rich vacant lots. Moreover, there was not a consistent local habitat factor driving differences in arthropod abundance by site across years. Each year had a different local habitat factors correlated with arthropod abundance. The second chapter compares five habitat treatments: regular vacant lots, successional vacant lots, lots seeded with a flowering lawn plant mix, lots seeded with a low diversity prairie plant mix, and lots seeded with a high diversity prairie mix. Each of the eight inner-city neighborhoods had one site of each habitat type for a total of forty sites across Cleveland, Ohio. Floral visitors were collected with bee vacuums during timed floral surveys in 2015 and 2016. A total of 3,456 plant visitors were collected in 71 different arthropod families including 1,752 bees and 347 hoverflies. Floral resources were similar between habitat types, with most floral visits on “weedy” flora. There was no difference in abundance of bees by habitat, but this could be partly due to slow establishment of perennial prairie plants or the pervasiveness of urban weedy flora across all sites. Moreover, several exotic species of plants were found to be important for several native species of bees in inner city Cleveland, with Cichorium intybus being visited by more than 30 species of native bees. The third chapter documents the 96 species of bees and their relative abundance from combined sampling efforts. I also note the first reported case of Psuedoanthidium nanum and Hylaeus pictipes in Ohio, new exotic species to the United States. Overall, I documented a diverse community of native and non-native species of bees persisting in these urban areas.
Mary Gardiner (Advisor)
Reed Johnson (Committee Member)
Karen Goodell (Committee Member)
122 p.
Entomology
Bees; Pollinators; Ohio; Biodiversity; Landscape Management; Ecosystem Services; Rain Gardens; Prairie; Inner City; Vacant Lots; Urban; Entomology;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Spring, M. R. (2017). Impacts of Urban Greenspace Management on Beneficial Insect Communities [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492682461719594

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Spring, MaLisa. Impacts of Urban Greenspace Management on Beneficial Insect Communities. 2017. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492682461719594.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Spring, MaLisa. "Impacts of Urban Greenspace Management on Beneficial Insect Communities." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492682461719594

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1492682461719594
657
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.