To weed or not to weed: Diverse lawn plant communities may provide urban arthropod conservation benefits.

Urbanization is a major driver of arthropod biodiversity declines. Urban greenspaces have potential to help mitigate the effects of urbanization if managed with the goal of conservation. Turfgrass lawns are ubiquitous greenspaces in urban landscapes, covering three times the area of any crop in the United States. Simplified lawn plant communities, typical of a conventionally managed turfgrass lawn, tend to support less diverse arthropod communities than natural areas. The pervasiveness of lawns in urban environments makes them an ideal system to address the effects of urbanization on biodiversity loss and to educate homeowners on environmentally sound management practices. Across a spectrum of maintenance intensity, lawn plant communities range from turfgrass monocultures to a mixture of various forb species. This study seeks to investigate the impact of lawn plant diversity on the urban arthropod community. To capture a comprehensive view of multiple trophic groups, pitfall and sticky traps were deployed to collect predators and herbivores. I surveyed lawns across a gradient of forb cover and diversity amongst the two most common turfgrass species in the Southeast. The aim of this study is to identify how lawn plant communities can provide suitable habitat to support diverse arthropod communities, with specific interest in predators. Ultimately, the goal of this study is to provide guidelines for maintaining acceptable levels of lawn forb diversity or cover for homeowners and lawn managers interested in urban conservation.