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UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Local and Landscape Drivers of Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services, and Human Well-being in Urban Agroecosystems Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2mn4m59z Author Egerer, Monika H Publication Date 2019 Supplemental Material https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2mn4m59z#supplemental License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ LOCAL AND LANDSCAPE DRIVERS OF BIODIVERSITY, ECOSYSTEM SERVICES, AND HUMAN WELL-BEING IN URBAN AGROECOSYSTEMS A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES by Monika H. Egerer June 2019 The Dissertation of Monika H Egerer is approved: Professor Stacy Philpott, chair Professor Madeleine Fairbairn Professor Erika Zavaleta Lori Kletzer Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Monika H. Egerer 2019 ii Table of Contents List of Figures and Tables iv Abstract vii Acknowledgments ix Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Urban agriculture: integrating biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services within agroecosystems in urban landscapes 1 Chapter 2. Landscape and local habitat correlates of ladybeetle abundance and richness in urban agriculture 31 Chapter 3. Cityscape quality and resource manipulation affect natural enemy biodiversity in and fidelity to urban agroecosystems 53 Chapter 4. Herbivore regulation in urban agroecosystems: direct and indirect effects 83 Chapter 5. Context matters: contrasting ladybird beetle responses to urban environments across two US regions 111 Chapter 6. Water use behavior, learning and adaptation to future change in urban gardens 139 Chapter 7. Temperature variability influences urban garden plant richness and gardener water use behavior, but not planting decisions 180 Chapter 8. Gardener wellbeing along social and biophysical landscape gradients 216 Chapter 9. Gated gardens: Effects of urbanization on community formation and commons management in community gardens 244 Chapter 10. Creating socioecological novelty in urban agroecosystems from the ground up 281 Conclusion 304 References 313 iii List of Figures and Tables Figures (page numbers by chapter) Figure 1-1 27 Figure 1-2 28 Figure 2-1 52 Figure 3-1 79 Figure 3-2 80 Figure 3-3 81 Figure 3-4 82 Figure 4-1 107 Figure 4-2 108 Figure 4-3 109 Figure 4-4 110 Figure 5-1 133 Figure 5-2 134 Figure 5-3 136 Figure 6-1 178 Figure 6-2 179 Figure 7-1 210 Figure 7-2 211 Figure 7-3 212 Figure 7-4 213 iv Figure 7-5 214 Figure 8-1 240 Figure 8-2 241 Figure 8-3 242 Figure 10-1 300 Figure 10-2 301 Figure 10-3 302 Figure 10-4 303 Tables (page numbers by chapter) Table 1-1 26 Table 2-1 47 Table 2-2 50 Table 3-1 76 Table 3-2 77 Table 3-3 78 Table 4-1 104 Table 4-2 105 Table 5-1 129 Table 5-2 131 Table 6-1 174 Table 6-2 176 v Table 6-3 177 Table 7-1 208 Table 7-2 209 Table 8-1 237 Table 8-2 238 Table 8-3 239 vi Abstract Local and Landscape Drivers of Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services, and Human Well- being in Urban Agroecosystems Monika H. Egerer This dissertation examines the local and landscape drivers of biodiversity, ecosystem service provisioning and human well-being in urban agricultural systems (agroecosystems). I explore three major themes: 1) urban biodiversity and ecosystem services; 2) climate change, water management and sustainability; and 3) urban gardens as socioecological systems. In an interdisciplinary approach, I use quantitative and qualitative methods in natural and social systems. In the first section, I examine the local and landscape scale drivers of biodiversity and pest control within urban gardens. I focus on the abundance and species richness of ladybird beetles – an important and mobile natural enemy of garden pests. I measure ladybeetle diversity within gardens, and experimentally test factors predicted to influence ladybeetle fidelity to gardens. I find that ladybeetle dispersal is higher from gardens in more impervious landscapes, albeit overall high taxonomic richness supported by these habitats. In comparison to other contexts, these results may be unique to California due to water availability maintained through garden irrigation. In the second section, I investigate how gardens become irrigated oases in an otherwise drought landscape. I use citizen science to collect water use data and ask vii how environmental concern and water governance are affecting water use behavior by gardeners. I also investigate how climate variability and increasing extremes influence water management and plant species cultivated in gardens. I find that gardeners lack an understanding of water use, are responding to weather patterns by changing watering behaviour, and that garden rules can limit water use. Moreover, research participation can improve gardeners’ water conservation literacy. This work informs our understanding of how climate change may impact urban agriculture sustainability and alludes to the socioecological complexity of gardens. In the third section, I focus on the social aspects of urban gardens and their management. I show that gardens provide many well-being benefits to gardeners, and are used more by people in urban areas. Yet I explain that there are crucial issues that undermine social and ecological sustainability in these gardens: the resources that create a habitat for biodiversity dually create social-political rifts within gardener communities. Gardens, and their biophysical and social elements are relatively novel in the scope of contemporary land use transformations. In summary, I show that urban gardens are sites of biodiversity, climate challenges, and social-ecological complexity that add to urban novelty. Using our understanding of complexity can inform management to improve urban and agricultural sustainability. viii Acknowledgments This work would not have been possible without the support of various faculty, mentors, undergraduate students, graduate students, community members, funding agencies, family and friends. To all of them, I am eternally grateful. First, I sincerely thank the field and lab work provided by dozens of undergraduate and graduate students that contributed to this work: C. Adams, Y. Bravo, J. Burks, Y. Byun, M. Cely-Santos, H. Cohen, E. Connor, V. De la Fuente, K. Ennis, K. Forbush, A. García, P. Gillette, M. Hash, D. Hafalia-Yackel, R. Hruska, B. Ferguson, E. Jimenez-Soto, Z. Jordan, C. Kirk, M. MacDonald, L. Marin, T. Milz, H. Morales, J. Muramoto, M.E. Narvaez Cuellar, T. Ong, A. Ossola, M. Otoshi, M. Plascencia, R. Quistberg, A. Rubio, C. Sanchez, G. Santiz Ruiz, R. Schreiber-Brown, J. Shaw, H-A. Tan, J. Tan, S-S. Thomas and M. Zavatta. Thank you to the UCSC Greenhouse Staff M. Dillingham and J. Velzy for growing experimental plants used in the research. Thank you to C. Anton, D. Bonett, A. Singh and J. Suraci for statistical assistance. The data and analyses supporting this dissertation would not have been possible without these various people. I thank the community gardens and gardeners for supporting and facilitating my research over five years. Further, I thank the gardeners for sharing their stories and often the fruits of their labor with me. I have gained a tremendous insight about agroecology, human values, and social-ecological complexity through my various interactions with them. I thank gardens in the California Central Coast including: Aptos Community Garden, Beach Flats Community Garden, Berryessa Community ix Garden, the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, Charles Street Community Garden, Chinatown Community Garden, Coyote Creek Community Garden, El Jardín at Emma Prusch Park, The Forge at Santa Clara University, Giving Garden at Faith Lutheran Church, Homeless Garden Project, La Colina Community Garden, Laguna Seca Community Garden, Live Oak Green Grange Community Garden, MEarth at Carmel Valley Middle School, Mesa Verde Gardens, Mid-County Senior Center, Our Green Thumb Garden at Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Pacific Grove Community Garden, Salinas Community Garden at St. George’s Episcopal Church, and Trescony Community Garden. I thank gardens in Melbourne, Australia, including: Ashburton Community Garden, Balwyn Community Garden, Box Hill Community Garden, Essendon Community Garden, Flemington Community Garden, Hawthorn Riversdale Road Community Garden, Merri Corner Community Garden, Nunawading-Jolimont Community Garden, Nunawading-Slater Community Garden, Rushall Community Garden, and West Brunswick Community Garden and Food Forest. I graciously thank many significant mentors that have shaped the way that I think and work: Peter Bichier, Madeleine Fairbairn, Evan Fricke, Binney Girdler, Shalene Jha, Dave Kendal, Heidi Liere, Brenda Lin, Alessandro Ossola, Camilo Ordonez-Barona, Stacy Philpott, Haldre Rogers, and Erika Zaveleta. Thank you for your time, support and advising. In particular, I thank Dr. Madeleine Fairbairn for her guidance in qualitative research, from field work to data analysis to writing. Her support through conversation, literature, and written feedback greatly contributed to x my intellectual growth in political ecology and sociology. I thank Dr. Brenda Lin for being a role model for how to think and work interdisciplinary. I thank her for teaching me how to work and to collaborate with colleagues across disciplines and across international borders (and time zones). The opportunity she provided to me to be a colleague gave me the confidence to be an independent scientist. I sincerely thank Dr. Stacy Philpott for her mentorship as my primary advisor. Her capacity to do excellent research, provide thoughtful mentorship, and be a very genuine person is inspiring. I thank her for her time, her honest feedback, and for consistently challenging me to improve. I have learned an immeasurable amount from her about research, academia, and fostering an academic community. Thank you, Stacy, for everything that you do and for believing in me as a student and researcher. Thank you to inspiring lab mates and dear friends in the Philpott research group that have become my family.
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