Plants and animals from other continents have been intentionally or accidentally brought to the U.S. for centuries. Many of them have become established, creating ecosystems made of species that have never before interacted with each other. Horticultural preferences have transformed the native plant communities that once supported life in residential landscapes into a collection of introduced plants that have no history with native organisms. If introduced plants are the ecological equivalents of the native plants they replace, ecosystem function in managed landscapes will remain as high as in natural areas. But if introduced plants do not support life as well as native plants, the diversity of animals where humans work, live and farm (well over 50% of the U.S. land area) will be reduced. This would be unsustainable because biodiversity drives ecosystem function, and functional ecosystems produce the natural services that sustain human populations. This project addresses the ability of plants to support food webs by comparing food webs in residential landscapes comprised of native plants with food webs in landscapes built from introduced plants. The research focuses on birds and their insect prey because both are excellent indicators of food web stability and diversity, and thus of overall biodiversity. Using Carolina chickadees, the study will measure how landscapes created from Asian plants alter: 1) insect communities; 2) the diets of nesting chickadees; and 3) the breeding success of chickadees in residential landscapes.
This study integrates outreach with science by conducting research on properties enrolled in Neighborhood Nestwatch, a citizen science program. Results will be published in the primary and popular literature to target landowners and policy-makers at all levels of environmental expertise. The public lacks an understanding of how plants and the insects that eat them enable more charismatic vertebrates, such as birds, to exist in urban environments. This study will help provide such understanding, which is key to sustainability because it is the public who will determine what urban ecosystems will look like in the future. In the process of this research, students will be trained in ecology and equipped with the skills needed to tackle major environmental challenges in the future.
