Author ORCID Identifier

0000-0003-1035-1608

Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Thesis (Ph.D.)

Department or Program

Ecology, Evolution, Environment and Society

First Advisor

Theresa W. Ong

Abstract

Diverse arthropods play essential roles in urban agriculture, while urban agriculture provides food and habitat that support arthropod biodiversity in fragmented urban landscapes. In urban community gardens, a form of urban agriculture characterized by allotment-style gardens, arthropods interact with plants and green space across multiple spatial scales of management, from individual gardeners' plots to broad urban landscapes. Understanding how plant communities in urban community gardens and urban landscapes shape arthropod biodiversity and interactions across scales can inform both agricultural management and urban biodiversity conservation. In this thesis, I conducted a series of field studies on ecologically and economically important arthropods in Boston community gardens to examine relationships among plant biodiversity, arthropod communities, and plant outcomes. In the first chapter, I investigated how local scales of management, plot- and garden- level plant communities, influenced arthropod biodiversity. I found that fine-scale plot-level plant richness was positively associated with overall arthropod richness, suggesting a plant-arthropod richness association at fine spatial scales. In the second chapter, I examined plant-herbivore interactions and plant outcomes in two common garden crops, tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) and peppers (Capsicum spp.). Garden-level plant richness was associated with greater herbivore abundance on focal crops; however, herbivore richness and abundance did not correspond to levels of plant herbivory or plant damage in these crops. In the third chapter, I tested whether flower visitor body size mediated the spatial scales at which they respond to resource availability in urban landscapes. We found that more abundant local floral resources were associated with higher flower visitor abundance, regardless of body size. However, flower visitor observations on controlled local flowering plants indicated that landscape context at broader spatial scales may play a stronger role in shaping focal flower visitation. Together, these findings provide new insights into arthropod communities in urban community gardens and highlight the importance of a multi-scale approach to arthropod management and biodiversity conservation in urban landscapes.

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