Ecosystem service values support conservation and sustainable land development: Perspectives from four University of California campuses

Urban landscapes homogenize our world at global scales, contributing to “extinction of experience”, a progressive decline in human interactions with native greenspace that can disconnect people from the services it provides. College age adults report feeling disconnected from nature more than other demographics, making universities a logical place to explore interventions intended to restore a connection with nature. This study surveyed 1088 students and staff across four university campus communities in Southern California, USA and used multicriteria decision analysis to explore their landscape preferences and the implications of those preferences for combatting extinction of experience. Our results suggest that perspectives of, and preferences for, different greenspace forms vary significantly (i.e., they are not perceived as substitutable). Support for native ecosystems, particularly coastal sage scrub (top ranked landscape) was generally high, suggesting that disaffection with wild nature is not particularly widespread. Programs for replacing turf grass lawns (lowest ranked landscape) with native plants were also well supported, but support for stormwater bioswales was more moderate (and variable). This may reflect their relative newness, both on university campuses and in urban spaces more generally. Not all members of campus communities preferred the same landscapes; preferences differed with degree of pro-environmentalism and university status (undergraduate student, graduate student, staff). Even so, all respondents exhibited landscape preferences consistent with at least one approach for combatting extinction of experience, suggesting that ecologists, engineers and urban planners have a viable set of generalizable tools for reconnecting people with nature

Effects of inundation and stranding on leaf litter decomposition and chemical transformation

Inundation and stranding are important processes of the riparian ecosystem due to water level fluctuation. Plant litter decomposition is a key process that determines the accumulation of soil organic matter in riparian ecosystems, but little is known about the alternating effects of inundation and stranding on this process. Using litters of the grass species Heteropogon contortus, we studied how the remaining mass and nitrogen (N), δ13C and δ15N, and 13C-CPMAS NMR spectra responded to permanent inundation, temporary inundation and drying over a period of twelve months. Inundation (permanent or temporary) and stranding altered litter C and N dynamics. The δ13C declined in the immersed litters and was stable after the litters were transported to the grassland plots, while δ15N in the litters that were decomposing continually in the water rapidly increased during the earlier stage of decomposition. We observed a significant increase in the proportion of ketone, carboxyl, and alkyl in the permanently inundated litter samples compared with those of litters decomposed at terrestrial habitats at the final harvest. These results indicated that the effects of inundation on the decay of labile and recalcitrant litter components were asynchronous. The decomposing litters in the inundation treatment differed chemically from those in the terrestrial habitat treatments and were characterized by greater relative abundances of ketone C and carboxyl C. The higher values of alkyl/O-alkyl for the stranding litters that had higher mass remaining and C/N as compared to those of inundated litters that had lower mass remaining and C/N in the final harvest, suggested a relatively higher contribution of the recalcitrant components to the litter residues. Likewise, the effects of transient inundation depend on the timing of immersion and stranding.No Full Tex