Abstract Cities are important sites for encouraging more widespread adoption of pro-environmental behaviors (PEB) that benefit humans and wildlife alike. Wildscaping, a type of stewardship PEB in which people create wildlife-friendly gardens, has been promoted by conservation organizations, yet fundamental questions remain about what wildscaping entails and what factors contribute to sustained involvement. We used a social-ecological systems (SES) framework to examine behavior change among urban residents in Colorado who had received wildscape gardening certification and training. We employed semi-structured interviews (n = 11), quantitative surveys (n = 63), participant observation, and document analysis, and analyzed data using grounded theoretical techniques. We found that program participants engaged in 14 gardening behaviors targeting habitat creation on their properties, and 11 advocacy behaviors targeting social change. These behaviors were driven by 10 interconnected motivations, including mutual refuge with wildlife, changing norms, aesthetic beauty, and sense of place. Engagement in wildscaping was sustained over time by multi-scalar contextual factors, including social interactions and formal program participation. These findings offer the first SES understanding of how urban residents begin and expand their engagement in wildscape gardening and advocacy. Future research should focus on how understanding of SES characteristics can enable more effective behavior change programs in urban landscapes. Possible ways that conservation outreach could consider SES include encouraging evolving feedback loops between participants’ motivations and behaviors, emphasizing reciprocal benefits to individuals and their social-ecological context, and promoting coordinated involvement by different types of actors at multiple scales of the system.

中文翻译：

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野生景观园丁中亲环境行为的演变系统

摘要 城市是鼓励更广泛采用有益于人类和野生动物的亲环境行为 (PEB) 的重要场所。Wildscaping 是一种管理 PEB，人们可以在其中创建对野生动物友好的花园，保护组织已经推广，但基本问题仍然是关于什么是 Wildscaping 以及哪些因素有助于持续参与。我们使用社会生态系统 (SES) 框架来检查科罗拉多州已获得野生景观园艺认证和培训的城市居民的行为变化。我们采用了半结构化访谈（n = 11）、定量调查（n = 63）、参与观察和文件分析，并使用扎根的理论技术分析了数据。我们发现，计划参与者参与了 14 种针对在其财产上创造栖息地的园艺行为，以及 11 种针对社会变革的倡导行为。这些行为是由 10 个相互关联的动机驱动的，包括与野生动物的相互庇护、不断变化的规范、审美美和地方感。随着时间的推移，参与野外景观的活动受到多尺度背景因素的影响，包括社会互动和正式的项目参与。这些发现提供了对城市居民如何开始和扩大他们对野生景观园艺和宣传的参与的第一个 SES 理解。未来的研究应该集中在了解 SES 特征如何能够在城市景观中实现更有效的行为改变计划。