The contribution of urban greenspaces to support biodiversity and provide benefits for people is increasingly recognized. However, ongoing management practices favor vegetation oversimplification, often limiting greenspaces to lawns and tree canopy rather than multi-layered vegetation that includes under- and midstorey, and the use of nonnative species. These practices hinder the potential of greenspaces to sustain indigenous biodiversity, particularly for taxa like insects that rely on plants for food and habitat. Yet, little is known about which plant species may maximize positive outcomes for taxonomically and functionally diverse insect communities in greenspaces. Additionally, while cities are expected to experience high rates of introductions, quantitative assessments of the relative occupancy of indigenous vs. introduced insect species in greenspace are rare, hindering understanding of how management may promote indigenous biodiversity while limiting the establishment of introduced insects. Using a hierarchically replicated study design across 15 public parks, we recorded occurrence data from 552 insect species on 133 plant species, differing in planting design element (lawn, midstorey, and tree canopy), midstorey growth form (forbs, lilioids, graminoids, and shrubs) and origin (nonnative, native, and indigenous), to assess (1) the relative contributions of indigenous and introduced insect species and (2) which plant species sustained the highest number of indigenous insects. We found that the insect community was overwhelmingly composed of indigenous rather than introduced species. Our findings further highlight the core role of multi-layered vegetation in sustaining high insect biodiversity in urban areas, with indigenous midstorey and canopy representing key elements to maintain rich and functionally diverse indigenous insect communities. Intriguingly, graminoids supported the highest indigenous insect richness across all studied growth forms by plant origin groups. Our work highlights the opportunity presented by indigenous understory and midstorey plants, particularly indigenous graminoids, in our study area to promote indigenous insect biodiversity in urban greenspaces. Our study provides a blueprint and stimulus for architects, engineers, developers, designers, and planners to incorporate into their practice plant species palettes that foster a larger presence of indigenous over regionally native or nonnative plant species, while incorporating a broader mixture of midstorey growth forms.

中文翻译：

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本土植物促进城市绿地昆虫生物多样性

城市绿地对支持生物多样性和为人们提供福利的贡献越来越得到认可。然而，正在进行的管理实践倾向于过度简化植被，通常将绿地限制在草坪和树冠上，而不是包括层下和中层的多层植被，以及使用非本地物种。这些做法阻碍了绿色空间维持土著生物多样性的潜力，特别是对于依赖植物作为食物和栖息地的昆虫类群。然而，对于绿色空间中分类和功能多样的昆虫群落，哪些植物物种可以最大限度地发挥积极作用，我们知之甚少。此外，虽然预计城市将经历高引进率，但对土著居民与非居民居民的相对占用率的定量评估。绿色空间中引入的昆虫物种很少见，阻碍了对管理如何促进本地生物多样性同时限制引入昆虫的建立的理解。使用跨 15 个公园的分层复制研究设计，我们记录了 133 种植物的 552 种昆虫的发生数据，这些数据在种植设计元素（草坪、中层和树冠）、中层生长形式（杂草、百合、禾本科和灌木）和起源（非本地、本地和本地），以评估 (1) 本地和引入昆虫物种的相对贡献和 (2) 哪些植物物种维持了最多的本地昆虫。我们发现昆虫群落绝大多数由本地物种而非引进物种组成。我们的研究结果进一步强调了多层植被在维持城市地区昆虫生物多样性方面的核心作用，土著中层和树冠代表了维持丰富且功能多样的土著昆虫群落的关键要素。有趣的是，禾本科植物支持所有研究的植物起源群体的生长形式中最高的本土昆虫丰富度。我们的工作强调了我们研究区域中本土林下和中层植物，特别是本土禾本科植物所提供的机会，以促进城市绿地中的本土昆虫生物多样性。我们的研究为建筑师、工程师、开发商、设计师、