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Does education influence wildlife friendly landscaping preferences?

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Abstract

In sprawling metropolitan areas, residential landscaping is a major concern with respect to biodiversity conservation, and it could play a critical role in conserving wildlife habitat. In the United States, residential landscaping typically consists of maintained lawns with specimen plantings of non-native trees and shrubs; such designs provide poor habitat for urban wildlife species. We conducted a case study of Raleigh, North Carolina residents to determine how providing information about the benefits of native plant landscaping to bird species influenced urban residents’ landscaping preferences. We used Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests to determine if respondent preferences for 0, 50, 75 and 100 % native plant landscaping coverages changed after residents were informed about the benefits that native plants provide for birds. Initially, the 50 % native landscaping coverage was most preferred by residents; however, preferences for all four native plant landscaping coverage designs were significantly different after the informational treatment. Neutrality changed to opposition for the 0 % native plant coverage, while opposition changed to support and neutrality for the 75 and 100 % native plant coverage designs, respectively. After the informational treatment, the 50 and 75 % native plant landscaping coverage had the highest mean preference levels, although the 100 % design was ranked first more than any other design. Our findings suggest that residential support for native plant landscaping is higher than is reflected by typical residential landscaping practices, and that dissemination of information regarding the benefits of native plant landscaping to birds could alter public preferences for native plant landscaping.

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Acknowledgments

Support was provided by North Carolina State University, Clemson University, and an Urban Long-Term Research Area Exploratory (ULTRA-Ex) award jointly supported by the National Science Foundation and the US Forest Service. We thank residents of PRIZM 12 and 62 in Raleigh NC for their participation in this study, and K. Bigsby for his assistance with certain aspects of the analysis associated with this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wildlife and Fisheries Biology, Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, 29634-0317, USA

    Shari L. Rodriguez

  2. Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology Program, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695-7646, USA

    M. Nils Peterson & Christopher J. Moorman

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  1. Shari L. Rodriguez
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  2. M. Nils Peterson
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  3. Christopher J. Moorman
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Correspondence to Shari L. Rodriguez.

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Rodriguez, S.L., Peterson, M.N. & Moorman, C.J. Does education influence wildlife friendly landscaping preferences?. Urban Ecosyst 20, 489–496 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-016-0609-2

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