To maximise the contribution that householders make to the biopersity of residential ecosystems, a greater understanding of the myriad ecological and social factors that underlie wildlife gardening practices is required (Goddard et al., 2010a; Kendal et al., 2010 ). There have been very few investigations into patterns of wildlife-friendly gardening, but preliminary research in US cities has explored some of the socioeconomic and demographic correlates of householder activities that influence birds (Lepczyk et al., 2004, 2012). UK urban ecology studies have examined the spatial variation in wildlife gardening and bird feeding and related this to neighbourhood-scale socio-economic status, population density and landscape context (Fuller et al., 2008; Fuller et al., 2012; Gaston et al., 2007). As yet, we know little about what drives people to engage in wildlife-friendly gardening. Studies of motivations for gardening in general have found that observing nature is highly valued by gardeners (Clayton, 2007; Fuller and Irvine, 2010). A body of social research from Australia and New Zealand has illustrated gardeners' attitudes and practice regarding native plants (e.g. Doody et al., 2010; Head and Muir, 2006; Zagorski et al., 2004), whilst researchers in environmental psychology have investigated the association between wider environmental values and ecological gardening practices and found contrasting results (e.g. Kiesling and Manning, 2010; Larson et al., 2010). Here, we use an integrated, interdisciplinary research design to simultaneously explore the social and ecological drivers, motivations and barriers for biopersity management in residential landscapes at multiple scales. In particular, the study objectives are to:(1) examine the spatial variation in activities to encourage wildlife in gardens and relate this to landscape context, socio-economic status, householder demographics, environmental values and garden characteristics and management; (2) assess whether wildlife gardening activities are correlated with bird richness, persity or abundance; (3) determine the range of influences on, and underlying motivations behind, wildlife gardening; and (4) explore the potential of various mechanisms for incentivising greater participation in wildlife-friendly gardening.
2. Methods
2.1. Study Area and Sampling Design
We develop and apply a mixed-methods research design that incorporates householder questionnaires and interviews with ecological surveys across a stratified sample of urban neighbourhoods in the UK city of Leeds, West Yorkshire (53° 47′ 59″ N, 1° 32′ 57″ W). With a human population approaching 790,000, Leeds is the third largest municipality in the UK. The Leeds metropolitan district covers an area of c. 550 km2, of which around two-thirds is farmland. Here we define the Leeds study area as the extent of the contiguous Leeds and Bradford urban area that falls within the Leeds District (Fig. 1). This urban area covers 133 km2 and is typical of cities in developed, temperate countries in containing a wide range of residential areas.
We used a hierarchical sampling design whereby study households were located within neighbourhoods that were in turn nested within wards. Wards are UK administrative areas and 27 fall within the Leeds urban boundary. Wards are further pided into Output Areas, OAs (hereafter termed neighbourhoods), that are the finest scale for which census data are available, typically classified based on tenure and dwelling type with a target size of 125 households (Office for National Statistics, 2011). We selected wards and neighbourhoods using stratified random sampling to capture the range of variation in landscape and socio-demographic characteristics. Six wards were selected: Roundhay, Morley South, Pudsey South, Whinmoor, Armley and Hunslet (Fig. 1). Three neighbourhoods were selected within each ward, giving a total of 18 study neighbourhoods (Fig. 1; Table 1). The hierarchical sampling design allows us to ascertain the relative contribution of household-scale factors compared to neighbourhood-and landscape-scale drivers affecting the biopersity of private gardens. 住宅景观中的生物多样性英文文献和中文翻译(2):http://www.youerw.com/fanyi/lunwen_11229.html