Recognition that patches of native habitat are useful in urban areas for many ecological services, and as public amenities that are sustainable with relatively low maintenance has grown. We have designed a series of plantings in large urban parks that attempt to restore connections between fragmented remnant habitats. Projects on old landfills in New York City used woodland patches of various scales to test whether the reestablishment of several mutualisms, including seed dispersal and pollination, can occur quickly. Habitat design for the new Orange County Great Park in California includes the goals of linking large existing preserves that are now separated by an extensive suburban zone and of meshing habitat complexity with the civic needs of a regional park that are defined by a landscape architecture team.
Results/Conclusions
On the landfill site, data show that mutualisms can quickly be reformed to support plant reproduction and operate over a wide scale of planting patch sizes. Monitoring the performance of these patches can easily be meshed with a citizen science initiative. This work also informs protocols for plantings at adjacent sites. In the California site, a 600-hectare former military air base, the needs for public access and multiple programmatic missions constrains the extent and character of native planting goals. Operational costs for installation of habitats are high on this site where no previous vegetation was present. However, costs can be mitigated and educational programs can advance by using local citizens in the restoration and monitoring phases. This also builds understanding of the role of urban habitats in local environmental health, and suggests new landscaping templates for surrounding suburban lands.
