Socio-Economic Differences Control Species Composition of Urban Gardens in a Metropolitan Area of Argentina
Abstract Human population is becoming increasingly more urbanized, and in that context private gardens contribute to biodiversity and to access to ecosystem services in cities. The urbanized landscape reflects social, economic and cultural differences of the population, which affect the patterns of urban biodiversity. Socioeconomic level is one of the main factors that spatially structure cities, for which it likely influences several attributes of gardens. In this study we characterized urban vegetation diversity in 50 private gardens of an urban agglomerate of Argentina, Gran San Miguel de Tucumán. We aimed to determine which variables control ecological attributes of gardens. We used socioeconomic indicators obtained from the 2010 Nacional Population and Households Census, and data obtained through a survey to garden owners. Our study suggests that species composition of gardens responds to socioeconomic conditions, which might be linked to the exchange of species as the main method to obtain plants and to strengthen social bonds by belonging to a similar socioeconomic level rather than neighborhood or geographic distance. Based on our analyses, gardens in areas with higher socioeconomic level were larger. Species richness and socioeconomic level of gardens were not significantly associated, and species diversity was related to garden age, with older gardens being more diverse.