David G. Casagrande

Residents’ Yard Choices and Rationales in a Desert City: Social Priorities, Ecological Impacts, and Decision Tradeoffs

As a dominant land use in urban ecosystems, residential yards impact water and other environmental resources. Converting thirsty lawns into alternative landscapes is one approach to water conservation, yet barriers such as cultural norms reinforce the traditional lawn. Meanwhile, the complex social and ecological implications of yard choices complicate programs aimed at changing grass and other yard features for particular purposes. In order to better understand individual landscape decisions, we qualitatively examined residents’ rationales for their preferred yard types in the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. After briefly presenting landscape choices across two survey samples, the dominant reasons for preferences are discussed: appearance, maintenance, environment, recreation, microclimate, familiarity, and health/safety. Three broader analytical themes emerged from these descriptive codes: (1) residents’ desires for attractive, comfortable landscapes of leisure encompassing pluralistic tastes, lifestyles, and perceptions; (2) the association of environmental benefits and impacts with different landscape types involving complex social and ecological tradeoffs; and (3) the cultural legacies evident in modern landscape choices, especially in terms of a dichotomous human–nature worldview among long-time residents of the Phoenix oasis. Given these findings, programs aimed at landscape change must recognize diverse preferences and rationalization processes, along with the perceived versus actual impacts and tradeoffs of varying yard alternatives.

Preferences for Landscape Choice in a Southwestern Desert City

Through outdoor water consumption, residential landscaping behavior affects public policy and the environment in the American Southwest. We propose a decision framework based on cost, ecological constraints, laws, and individual preferences. Controlling for cost, ecological constraints, and laws, we surveyed residents in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, using computer-generated landscape images to examine the effects of environmental attitudes (measured using Dunlaps New Ecological Paradigm), socialization, aesthetic affect, and demographic variables on landscape preferences. Landscape images varied from low-water xeriscapes to lush designs. Residents preferred high-water-use landscapes over dry landscapes for their own yards, even though they considered desert landscapes to be aesthetically pleasing. Women and long-term residents of the area were significantly more averse to dry landscapes. Stronger environmental attitudes did not lead to preference for xeriscapes but did lead to compromises on the amount of turf grass preferred in lush landscapes. This may contribute to the “oasis” mentality commonly found among area residents.

Evaluation of four methods for estimating Parrot population size

We evaluated point transect, line transect, mark-resighting, and roost survey methods by comparing population estimates to a reference population of Green-rumped Parrotlets (Forpus passerinus) in the Ilanos of Venezuela. All four methods produced similar population estimates, reflected peaks in nesting and fledging, and almost always exceeded the known minimum population size. Congruence among the estimates decreased as the breeding season progressed. The mark-resighting method had the largest confidence intervals, but precision was similar for the other three methods. Point transect surveys appeared to underestimate the population in open habitat. Line transect surveys more accurately estimated the distribution of the population between habitats. Detection probability was more variable for point transects than for line transects. We recommend using line transect surveys rather than point transects when conditions allow. Roost surveys were complicated by the tendency of parrotlets to change roost sites often, and roost surveys underestimated populations during breeding. Roost surveys may be reliable during nonbreeding, and we recommend further development of roost survey protocol. Behavioral characteristics of Green-rumped Parrotlets allowed us to meet assumptions and requirements of all methods with the exception of mark-resighting. This success may not be replicated with other parrot species.

Learning to roll with the punches: adaptive experimentation in human‐dominated systems

The interdisciplinary study of human–environment interactions is becoming increasingly important around the world. Long-term experimental manipulations that combine approaches from both the ecological and social sciences could play an important role in the study of human–environment feedbacks in cities. The inclusion of in situ human subjects in this research is vital, as it facilitates more accurate scientific models and might produce social benefits such as increasing public trust in scientists. Within a landscape experiment, human subjects may alter experimental conditions to suit their needs, imitating the rapidly changing environmental conditions in cities. In response, researchers adjust explanatory models in a process which could be called “adaptive experimentation”. These ideas are illustrated by a description of a proposed experiment in the Phoenix metropolitan area, where residential landscaping will be manipulated and the feedbacks between ecological processes and the activities of resident hum...

Drivers of Spatial Variation in Plant Diversity Across the Central Arizona-Phoenix Ecosystem

ABSTRACT We examined how growth of the Phoenix urban landscape has changed spatial patterns in native Sonoran desert plant diversity. Combining data from the U.S. Census with a probability-based field inventory, we used spatial and multivariate statistics to show how plant diversity across the region is influenced by human actions. Spatial variations in plant diversity among sites were best explained by current and former land use, income, housing age, and elevation. Despite similar average diversity in perennial plant genera between desert and urban sites, numerous imported exotics have significantly increased variation in plant generic composition among urban sites, with a “luxury effect” of higher plant diversity at sites in wealthier neighborhoods. We conclude that controls on natural spatially autocorrelated desert plant diversity are replaced by a variable suite of site-specific human factors and legacy effects, which require an integration of ecology and social science to be fully understood.

Social Networks of Help-Seeking in Different Types of Disaster Responses to the 2008 Mississippi River Floods

We conducted thirty-two interviews and four focus groups in Illinois after extensive flooding in 2008 to determine whether people use social networks in different ways when responding to different types of challenges before, during, and after the flood. Using a grounded theory approach to analyze narratives of interviewees recalling events, we coded sections of text using “social relationship” and “response” as sensitizing concepts. Results showed people relied most on immediate family when securing life. Networks expanded to friends, neighbors, professionals, and volunteers during non-life-threatening preparation and immediate recovery. Immediately before the disasters impact, social networks extended outward into weak ties in a spirit of communitas. During long-term recovery, interviewees were most isolated and relied heavily on immediate family and professionals. The concepts of bridging and bonding social capital may be more important for understanding non-vital response, whereas strong and weak ties...

Ethnobiology Lives! Theory, Collaboration, and Possibilities for the Study of Folk Biologies

Living and conducting research among the Tzeltal-speaking Maya allowed me to experience firsthand the depth of their knowledge about plants and animals. The children are especially impressive, and they can name over 100 plants by the time they’re nine years old (Stross, 1973). In addition to naming plants, my host family’s 12-year-old daughter could explain complicated medicinal preparations using 43 different plant species. One might think that such knowledge is less important for postindustrial societies, but I am also impressed by my six-year-old niece’s knowledge that pooh-bears eat honey, but tiggers don’t, as well as her ability to distinguish and name dogs, squirrels, and cats when she was only two. These cases illustrate an important point: biological classification is fundamental to human thought. It occurs in some form in every society and is a part of every child’s cognitive development. This alone would make

Ecomyopia in the Anthropocene

The authors apply longue duree and semiotic approaches to a case study of flood management in the American Midwest to critique the suggestion that naming the current geological epoch the ‘Anthropocene’ might encourage global environmental sustainability. It is unlikely that the Anthropocene moniker has the symbolic power to correct ecomyopia, which the authors define as the tendency to not recognize, to ignore, or fail to act on new information that contradicts political arrangements, social norms, or world views. Anthropogenic transformation of the Mississippi River watershed shifted world views toward the human domination of nature and afforded opportunities for social stratification and the consolidation of capital and control over resources, which has biased social responses to increasing flooding. Globally, biological systems have been replaced with technological systems of increasing complexity creating canalized trajectories of practice and thought in which societies become insulated from ecological realities. The global capitalist response to the Anthropocene will likely be to embrace technological hubris.