Planning for protection: promoting pest suppressing urban landscapes through habitat management

The maintenance of healthy vegetation in urban landscapes is essential for creating sustainable cities. In addition to providing habitat for numerous biodiversity groups, city trees have been shown to play a vital role in supporting human health through the effects on well-being as well as moderating the effects of pollution and urban heat. In all landscapes, biodiversity underpins ecosystem function and supports all human activities. The long history of successful landscape management in agriculture and horticulture to enhance populations of beneficial biodiversity provides a roadmap for urban ecologists and land managers. The response of biodiversity to increased urban density and habitat alteration has been studied at a variety of spatial scales. The reliance on descriptive gradient-based approaches generally reveals declines in biodiversity in cities, despite some species surviving and thriving in urban landscapes. Biodiversity returns on landscape-scale efforts to revegetate or restore habitat have most often been assessed in agricultural settings.