Lab LADYSS, UMR 7733 CNRS Université de Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2 Rue Valette, 75005 Paris, France.
Conserv Biol. 2013 Aug;27(4):876-86. doi: 10.1111/cobi.12057. Epub 2013 May 6.
Urban ecology is emerging as an integrative science that explores the interactions of people and biodiversity in cities. Interdisciplinary research requires the creation of new tools that allow the investigation of relations between people and biodiversity. It has been established that access to green spaces or nature benefits city dwellers, but the role of species diversity in providing psychological benefits remains poorly studied. We developed a user-friendly 3-dimensional computer program (Virtual Garden [www.tinyurl.com/3DVirtualGarden]) that allows people to design their own public or private green spaces with 95 biotic and abiotic features. Virtual Garden allows researchers to explore what elements of biodiversity people would like to have in their nearby green spaces while accounting for other functions that people value in urban green spaces. In 2011, 732 participants used our Virtual Garden program to design their ideal small public garden. On average gardens contained 5 different animals, 8 flowers, and 5 woody plant species. Although the mathematical distribution of flower and woody plant richness (i.e., number of species per garden) appeared to be similar to what would be expected by random selection of features, 30% of participants did not place any animal species in their gardens. Among those who placed animals in their gardens, 94% selected colorful species (e.g., ladybug [Coccinella septempunctata], Great Tit [Parus major], and goldfish), 53% selected herptiles or large mammals, and 67% selected non-native species. Older participants with a higher level of education and participants with a greater concern for nature designed gardens with relatively higher species richness and more native species. If cities are to be planned for the mutual benefit of people and biodiversity and to provide people meaningful experiences with urban nature, it is important to investigate people's relations with biodiversity further. Virtual Garden offers a standardized tool with which to explore these relations in different environments, cultures, and countries. It can also be used by stakeholders (e.g., city planners) to consider people's opinions of local design.
城市生态学正在成为一门综合性科学，探索城市中人类与生物多样性的相互作用。跨学科研究需要创造新的工具，以研究人类与生物多样性之间的关系。人们已经认识到，接触绿地或自然对城市居民有益，但物种多样性在提供心理益处方面的作用仍研究不足。我们开发了一个用户友好的 3 维计算机程序（Virtual Garden [www.tinyurl.com/3DVirtualGarden]），允许人们用 95 种生物和非生物特征设计自己的公共或私人绿地。Virtual Garden 使研究人员能够探索人们希望在其附近绿地中拥有哪些生物多样性元素，同时考虑到人们在城市绿地中重视的其他功能。2011 年，732 名参与者使用我们的 Virtual Garden 程序设计了他们理想的小型公共花园。平均而言，花园中包含 5 种不同的动物、8 种花卉和 5 种木本植物。尽管花卉和木本植物丰富度（即每种花园的物种数量）的数学分布似乎与通过特征随机选择的结果相似，但 30%的参与者没有在其花园中放置任何动物物种。在那些在花园中放置动物的参与者中，94%选择了色彩鲜艳的物种（如七星瓢虫 [Coccinella septempunctata]、大山雀 [Parus major] 和金鱼），53%选择了爬行动物或大型哺乳动物，67%选择了非本地物种。年龄较大、教育程度较高且更关心自然的参与者设计的花园物种丰富度相对较高，且更多是本地物种。如果城市规划要造福于人类和生物多样性，并为人们提供与城市自然有意义的体验，那么进一步研究人们与生物多样性的关系就很重要。Virtual Garden 提供了一个标准化的工具，可以在不同的环境、文化和国家中探索这些关系。它也可以被利益相关者（如城市规划者）用来考虑人们对当地设计的看法。
