[MCN] Urban gardens can benefit wildlife, and human immigrants

Tue Apr 5 16:22:18 EDT 2016

Can urban gardeners benefit ecosystems while keeping food traditions alive?

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, 
CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
PUBLIC RELEASE: 5-APR-2016
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The full text of the article is available at: http://bit.ly/1pNX8XZ.
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URBANA, Ill. - When conjuring up an image of a 
healthy ecosystem, few of us would think of a 
modern city. But scientists are increasingly 
recognizing that the majority of ecosystems are 
now influenced by humans, and even home gardens 
in urban landscapes can contribute important 
ecosystem services.

"Ecosystem services are the benefits that 
ecosystems provide to humans. In a natural 
ecosystem, these are things like natural 
medicinal products or carbon that's sequestered 
by forest trees. In an urban context, it would be 
similar types of things. For example, shade from 
trees provides microclimate control to keep us 
more comfortable," explains University of 
Illinois landscape agroecologist Sarah Taylor 
Lovell.

Lovell and her colleagues investigated the 
ecosystem services and disservices provided by 
home food gardens in Chicago, adding a cultural 
dimension by looking at gardening practices in 
specific ethnic communities. In an earlier study, 
they found a high density of food gardens in 
Chicago were in African American, Chinese-origin, 
and Mexican-origin communities.

The team visited and interviewed nearly 60 
households across the city, noting the types and 
relative abundance of the edible plants, 
ornamental plants, and trees in each garden.

"The number of species grown across all of the 
gardens was comparable to the number of species 
found in a remnant native prairie near Chicago," 
Lovell reports. "But the vast majority of garden 
species were not native to the region."

The number of plant species in an area can have a 
direct impact on insects, birds, and other 
wildlife, but non-native crops may not benefit 
wildlife in an urban context to the degree that 
native plants might. The researchers identified 
additional consequences to urban food gardens in 
terms of ecosystem services.

"Most of the gardeners were using synthetic 
fertilizers to really optimize production," 
Lovell explains. "In doing so, they were 
increasing some nutrients to a level that could 
lead to runoff and contamination of surrounding 
environments. We also identified a tradeoff 
between needing sunlight for your vegetable 
garden and preferring a treed habitat for 
microclimate control. Gardeners would sometimes 
remove trees or reduce the level of shade and 
shrubs."

Despite these issues, the researchers noted that 
urban gardens play an important role in the 
cultural lives of gardeners and may lead to 
greater food security where fresh produce is not 
easily available.

"Each cultural group was specifically selecting 
ethnic crops and propagating plants that were 
familiar to them," Lovell says. "I think, in some 
ways, especially for first generation immigrants 
to Chicago, it's a way to bring a feeling of 
home."

Several food crops, such as squash and herbs in 
the mint family, were common in many of the 
gardens, but each cultural group grew plants that 
were unique to that group. For example, collards 
and okra were only found in the gardens of 
African Americans. Only Mexican-origin gardeners 
grew Papalo and tomatillo, and only 
Chinese-origin gardeners grew bitter melon, 
yardlong bean, winter melon, fuzzy gourd, and bok 
choy
.
Chinese-origin gardens had the most unique 
assemblage of plants overall, whereas there was 
more overlap between crops grown by African 
American and Mexican-origin gardeners. 
Chinese-origin gardeners also were more likely 
than other groups to utilize all available space 
for food crop production, often creating tiered 
trellis structures to maximize space for vines 
and other twining plants.

The work was innovative in terms of bringing a 
cultural dimension into the study of urban 
ecosystem services, but, for the researchers, the 
bottom line came down to people.

Lovell notes, "It was mainly about the 
interesting and unique connection between 
cultures and their foodways. The study 
demonstrated a special connection between what 
you can grow, how you grow it, and what your 
background is. Gardens may have the potential to 
connect you to a historic past or your own 
community. If there's a certain ethnic group in a 
community, gardening becomes a way to communicate 
with their neighbors, as a unique social network 
option."

###
The article, "Ecosystem services and tradeoffs in 
the home food gardens of African American, 
Chinese-origin and Mexican-origin households in 
Chicago, IL," appears in Renewable Agriculture 
and Food Systems. Lead author, John R. Taylor, is 
an assistant professor at Chatham University. 
Lovell and additional co-authors, Sam Wortman and 
Michelle Chan, are at U of I. The research was 
supported by the USDA National Institute of Food 
and Agriculture Hatch program.

The full text of the article is available at: http://bit.ly/1pNX8XZ.
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Here, at the point of water uptake by the roots 
of plants, begins the problem with respect to 
water in the biosphere that makes all other water 
problems seem trifling."

"Leonardo da Vinci's dictum, 'Water is the driver 
of nature,' is justified on meteorological 
grounds alone."

"Water vapor enters the atmosphere by evaporation 
(this term includes transpiration by vegetation), 
and the main oceanic sources are fairly 
identifiable. It leaves the atmosphere as rain or 
snow, and because the precipitation may take 
place close to the source or thousands of miles 
away, the residence time may vary from a few 
hours to a few weeksŠ.The general balance of 
evaporation and precipitation needs three sets of 
figures, one for the entire earth, one for the 
oceans and one for the land surface."

Penman, H.L. The Water Cycle. Scientific American, September 1970
=========================================================================
  "Forest-driven evapotranspiration   ...  from a 
particular catchment contributes to the 
availability of atmospheric moisture vapor and 
its cross-continental transport, raising the 
likelihood of precipitation events and increasing 
water yield, in particular in continental 
interiors more distant from oceans. Š. 
Policy-making attempts  ...   must consider the 
linkage of forests to the supply of 
precipitation."

Global Change Biology (2012) 18, 806-820, doi: 
10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02589.x REVIEW
On the forest cover-water yield debate: from 
demand- to supply-side thinking. DAVID ELLISON, 
MARTYN N. FUTTER and KEVIN BISHOP
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