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immigrants</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">Can urban gardeners benefit ecosystems
while keeping food traditions alive?</font><br>
<font face="Lucida Grande"></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF
AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">PUBLIC
RELEASE: 5-APR-2016</font></div>
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face="Lucida Grande"
>-------------------------------------------------------</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">The full text of the article is
available at: http://bit.ly/1pNX8XZ.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Lucida Grande">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.</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
"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.</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
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.</font></div>
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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.</font></div>
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"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."</font></div>
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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.</font></div>
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"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."</font></div>
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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.</font></div>
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"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."</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
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</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">.<br>
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.</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
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.</font></div>
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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."</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
###<br>
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<i> Renewable Agriculture
and Food Systems</i>. 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.</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">The full text of the article is
available at: http://bit.ly/1pNX8XZ.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1"
color="#000000"
>####################################################################<span
></span>####<br>
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."<br>
<br>
"Leonardo da Vinci's dictum, 'Water is the driver of nature,' is
justified on meteorological grounds alone."<br>
<br>
"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."<br>
<br>
Penman, H.L.<b> The Water Cycle</b>.<i> Scientific American</i>,
September 1970<br>
=====================================================================<span
></span>====</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1"
color="#000000"> "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."</font><br>
<font face="Geneva" size="-1" color="#000000"></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1" color="#000000"><i>Global Change
Biology</i> (2012) 18, 806-820, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02589.x
REVIEW<br>
<b>On the forest cover-water yield debate: from demand- to supply-side
thinking</b>. DAVID ELLISON, MARTYN N. FUTTER and KEVIN
BISHOP</font><br>
<font face="Geneva" size="-1" color="#000000"></font></div>
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