Creating Green Spaces To Conserve Beneficial Urban Arthropods

Project Abstract

Green Heart is an urban greening experiment in Louisville, KY seeking to create new urban green spaces, to increase air quality, and ultimately improve human health. Concurrent with this urban greening, they also aim to reduce populations of herbivorous pests, like the invasive Emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis), which could negatively affect implementation and management of green spaces, and other Arthropods, like bed bugs and mites, that could negatively influence human health. The objective of our ongoing study is to assess how urban greening influences Arthropod diversity, abundances overall, and the diversity and abundances of herbivorous pests, which could negatively influence greening applications and long-term management, and Arthropods of human health significance. During the summers of 2019 – 2021, we sampled for Arthropods on road right aways within a 0.3 m2 frame using a vacuum sampler at 140 sites inside (n = 34) and outside (n = 106) of an urban greening area within a residential neighborhood in Louisville, KY. Most of our sampling has occurred pre-greening and we will continue to sample as greening applications are completed throughout the neighborhood for at least the next 2 years. Our research and processing of the data is ongoing, and we will present preliminary data on the pre-greening Arthropod community we observed on our study site.

Funding Type

Research Grant

Academic College

Jesse D. Jones College of Science, Engineering and Technology

Area/Major/Minor

Wildlife and Conservation Biology

Degree

Second Bachelor's of Science in Wildlife and Conservation Biology

Classification

Junior

Name

Dr. Andrea Darracq

Academic College

Jesse D. Jones College of Science, Engineering and Technology

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