Creating Living Landscapes: Why We Need to Increase Plant/Insect Linkages in Designed Landscapes

摘要

Specialized relationships between animals and plants are the norm in nature rather than the exception and landscape designs that destroy them also degrade local ecosystem function. Plants that evolved in concert with local animals provide for their needs better than plants that evolved elsewhere. The most common and arguably most important specialized relationships are those that have developed between insect herbivores and their host plants. Here, I explain why this is so, why specialized food relationships determine the stability and complexity of the local food webs that support animal diversity, and why our yards and gardens are essential parts of the ecosystems that sustain us. I also discuss how we can use our residential and corporate landscapes to connect the isolated habitat fragments around us and produce valuable ecosystem services, and what we can do to make our landscapes living ecosystems once again.