Wildness and Wild Spaces in Residential Yards: Changing Neighborhood Norms to Support Pollinator Populations

Insect pollinator populations, critical to the global food supply, are declining. Research has found robust bee communities in cities, which are supported by diverse urban habitat and foraging resources. Accounting for 35–50% of urban green space, U.S. private residential yards can serve as important forage and nesting sources for pollinators. Incorporating wild attributes and wildness, such as native vegetation and less intensive yard-management practices, is key. However, urban vegetation, and its effects on local native bee populations, is shaped by social and cultural preferences, norms, aesthetics, values, and identities. The perfect lawn ideal of a highly manicured turfgrass yard dominates neighborhood landscapes and is often at odds with the habitat needs of pollinators. As part of a three-year study investigating the sociocultural drivers of residential vegetation choices in St. Louis, MO, USA, we interviewed 85 decisionmakers in order to understand choices about private residential yard maintenance. This paper presents an emergent finding concerning how residents conceptualize and talk about the urban-yard aesthetic, using the terms "wild" and "wildness", which reflect a range of levels in the demand for urban wild spaces in their neighborhoods. The discourse of wildness offers a nontechnical route for understanding the connections between the ecological consequences of urbanization, with human attitudes towards nature that shape the biological functioning of human-generated habitats.

Privately Managed Green Open Space and Its Ecological Role in Improving Thermal Comfort of Kesiman Kertalangu Area

The rapid development of urban areas in general has a negative impact on built environmental. The decrease of green open space is cause by increasing the need of space for human activity. The reduced area of green open space in Denpasar City, especially in private green open space in the Kesiman Kertalangu area, causes environmental quality to decline. Reducing the area of green open space can cause urban problems, such as increasing city air temperatures. Therefore, it is important to know the role of private green open space in residential yards for increasing thermal comfort in the Kesiman Kertalangu area. For this study the method used is a qualitative research method with a descriptive case study approach. The aim of this study is to determine the role of private green open space in residential yards in term of thermal comfort. The results show that in residential yards that have relatively large areas of land, the existing private green open space conditions are quite optimal. However, in residential yards that have limited land area, the availability of green open space is very minimal. The existence of private green open space in residential yards at the Kesiman Kertalangu area in general is not able to work optimally in reducing temperatures to create a suitable thermal comfort for the environment.

Hurricane Driven Changes in Vegetation Structure and Ecosystem Services in Tropical Urban Yards: a Study Case in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Urban forests are valuable spaces for species conservation, protection of local biodiversity and provision of ecosystem services. However, they are also vulnerable to the impact of extreme climate events like hurricanes. Understanding how urban forests are responding to hurricane disturbances is crucial to improve their design, management, and resilience. Here we analyzed pre-and post-hurricane surveys in 52 residential yards in San Juan to assess urban forests responses after Hurricanes Irma and Maria impacted Puerto Rico in 2017. We used these surveys to compare vegetation structure and composition (including species-specific mortality and damage rates) and to quantify changes in the ecosystem services provided by these yards. We found that hurricane disturbances significantly altered the structure but not the composition of yard vegetation. We detected a 27% reduction and 31% mortality of standing stems, and a significant reduction in plants health. Yard species composition was dominated by non-native species and this trend did not change with hurricane disturbance. Changes in vegetation structure translated into substantial reductions in ecosystem services. Food provision, an important service provided by a large proportion of yards before the hurricane, reported the highest reduction (41.9%) while carbon storage was the service that changed the least (9%). Our combined results emphasize the key role played by residential yards providing ecosystem services in tropical cities and call for further efforts to manage private and public urban forests in ways that may ensure their resilience to mitigate extreme climate events, provide multiple ecosystem services, and promote long-term urban sustainability.

Profiling native and introduced perennial garden plants in Puerto Rican urban residential yards

Worldwide the number of non-native species escaping from cultivation into native habitats is steadily increasing with no signs of saturation. Species that eventually become invasive may generate unwanted social and ecological conditions especially in areas of conservation concern. This study built upon prior biodiversity work from 432 residential yards in the San Juan Metropolitan Area of Puerto Rico to evaluate the natural history and functional traits of native and non-native plant species in these green spaces. We reviewed the literature for a total of 361 plant species to extract information on their taxonomy, native distribution range, invasive status (casual, naturalized or invasive), life-form and ecological and biological species attributes. We then evaluated the relationship between their attributes and their probability of escaping cultivation and become invasive. Our results show that non-native species growing in yards are more likely to succeed in becoming invasive if they have vegetative growth, a mixed breeding system, and an unspecialized dispersal mode. We also found that native and non-native species occurring in residential yards share similar adaptive strategy scores. Most plant species that have already become invasive originated from Asia and America a fact that is likely tied to the US nursery trade. We used the combined results of this and prior studies to understand the factors facilitating plant invasion and to generate recommendations for the development of management strategies that may limit the spread of non-native ornamentals with the potential to escape cultivation and become invasive on this island.

Collection and DNA Detection of Dirofilaria immitis (Rhabditida Onchocercidae), Using a Novel Primer Set, in Wild-Caught Mosquitoes From Gainesville, FL

Dirofilaria immitis, the causative agent of dog heartworm disease, is an important cause of canine morbidity and mortality, expensive to treat, and severe infections are often fatal. Much is known about the pathogen in the canine host, yet little is known on the basic ecology of the nematode in the mosquito vector. Thus, to evaluate the effectiveness of collection techniques on ability to capture dog heartworm-infected mosquitoes (Diptera Culicidae), we conducted a field study spanning 111 wk. Four methods were used: two aspirators types, sweep netting, and a CDC trap. All sites had canines present in either residential yards (n = 4) or dog kennel facilities (n = 3). Collected mosquitoes were sorted by site, trap, species, and date, then pooled into groups of up to 25 individuals. Mosquito head and thorax pools were extracted for DNA, that was screened using currently available protocols. These protocols were found unreliable; thus, we developed a novel qPCR primer and probe set. Using this method, the original samples were re-assayed and provided 494 positive pools. Approximately 10% of positive samples were confirmed by Sanger sequencing. Twenty-two mosquito species tested positive for dog heartworm DNA, including a new association with Wyeomyia mitchellii (Theobald). Although Aedes atlanticus (Dyar and Knab), Anopheles crucians Wiedemann, and Culiseta melanura (Coquillett) composed nearly 36% of the total collection, these species represented 42% of the qPCR positive pools. Infection rates within commonly collected mosquitoes ranged up to 2.5%, with more rarely collected species ranging up to 14%. The CDC trap was the most effective collection method at trapping infected mosquitoes.

The Activities of Local Government Bodies to Improve the Sanitary Condition of Cities in Western Siberia (Late XIX — Early XX Centuries)

The activities of local authorities in the sanitary improvement of cities in the West Siberian region are characterized in the article. The author analyzes the sanitary regulations of the self-government bodies addressed to the urban population, identifies their common and distinctive features. Attention is focused on the problem of compliance with the instructions issued by the authorities by the owners of factories, plants, trade shops, public baths, hairdressers and other institutions of urban infrastructure, as well as ordinary citizens. Methods of punishment for violation of the accepted sanitary rules and the effectiveness of their application are considered. The conclusion is made about the intensification of the work of urban self-government bodies in ensuring sanitary order, which was caused by an increase in the rates of economic development of cities, an increase in their population, an acceleration of migration processes and, as a consequence, an unfavorable epidemiological situation, an expansion of the residential area due to the chaotic development of urban outskirts, pollution of water supply sources, the emergence of unauthorized household waste dumps. It is emphasized that the need to solve the problems of sanitary improvement forces the city authorities to seek support from caring citizens, to establish interaction with them, which brings first positive results, contributes to the development of private initiative in improving the sanitary condition of the city economy and residential yards of ordinary inhabitants.