‘Wildlife-friendly’ gardening is a dominant theme in the media that readily engages public attention. However, there is little empirical evidence of the ecological benefits of increased habitat quality of individual domestic gardens. This study uses light-trapping to examine the response of moth assemblages to domestic gardens that are assessed in terms of their habitat complexity (simple and complex) both within the garden and extending out to a 30 m radius that includes surrounding habitats. The results clearly show that moth assemblages were influenced by complex habitats (particularly increasing levels of the variable shrubs and decreasing levels of artificial surfaces), but only at a scale that extended beyond the garden boundary to include the surrounding area. In other words, neither the complexity of the habitat within the garden or the size of the garden had any influence on the abundance or diversity of the moth assemblage. These results have implications for both garden management and landscape planning – if domestic gardens are to be a useful component of strategies to reduce biodiversity loss within the urban environment then they should provide good habitat quality and be managed as a network of interconnected patches rather than as individual units.

“野生动物友好型”园艺是媒体中的一个主要主题，很容易引起公众的关注。但是，几乎没有任何经验证据表明增加单个家庭花园的栖息地质量所带来的生态效益。这项研究使用光诱捕技术来检查蛾类组合对家庭花园的响应，这些蛾类组合是根据其在花园内并延伸到包括周围生境在内的30 m半径内的生境复杂性（简单和复杂）来评估的。结果清楚地表明，蛾类的组装受到复杂栖息地的影响（特别是可变灌木的水平增加和人工表面的水平减少），但其扩展范围超过了花园边界，包括周围区域。换一种说法，花园中生境的复杂性或花园的大小都不会对蛾类组合的丰度或多样性产生任何影响。这些结果对花园管理和景观规划都具有影响-如果将家用花园作为减少城市环境中生物多样性丧失的策略的有用组成部分，则它们应提供良好的栖息地质量，并应作为相互联系的斑块网络进行管理，而不是像个别单位。