Restoring the earth’s ecosystems may seem like an impossible task. However, every effort to restore even small patches of disturbed earth can make a positive difference. Our best chance to sustain the plants and animals that were once common throughout the U.S. is through the collective efforts of our suburban and urban landscapes. A growing patchwork of diverse landscapes can move beyond traditional landscape goals of aesthetic beauty to a loftier goal of creating a healthier environment for wildlife and people.
If this idea is new to you, it’s not your fault. From childhood, we were taught that the commercial and residential plantings in our yards, parks, and campuses are mainly for beauty; they allow and encourage us to express our artistic talents, have fun, and relax. We may feel that how we landscape showcases our properties as a statement of our wealth and social status.
However, no one has taught us that we have forced the plants and animals that evolved in North America (our nation’s biodiversity) to depend more and more on human-dominated landscapes for their continued existence. We have always thought biodiversity was “somewhere out there in nature,” in undeveloped forestland, or perhaps in our state and national parks. We have heard nothing about the rate at which species are disappearing from our neighborhoods, towns, counties, and states. Even worse, we have never been taught how vital biodiversity is for our well-being.
Population growth and consumer demand are impacting biodiversity
The current population of the U.S. in 2024 is 341,814,420, a 0.53% increase from 2023 and double the population most of us knew as children. The combination of births, deaths, and net international migration increases the U.S. population by one person every 24.2 seconds. This significant increase in population, combined with factors such as our reliance on cars, the desire for larger homes, and the availability of cheap gas, has led to unprecedented development. Every year, development sprawls over an additional two million acres, equivalent to the size of Yellowstone National Park. To connect these developments, we have constructed four million miles of roads, and their paved surface is five times the size of New Jersey.
Over time, we have transformed the forests that once covered our living and working spaces and eliminated the diverse natural communities of native wildflowers, grasses, and woodlands. We’ve created vast expanses of residential lawns with a few small, primarily nonnative trees and shrubs. We have planted over 62,500 square miles (40 million acres) of lawn. Every weekend, we mow an area eight times the size of New Jersey to within an inch of the soil and then congratulate ourselves on a job well done.
Moreover, the remaining woodlots and “open spaces” we haven’t paved over are not pristine. They are primarily second-growth forests. In these areas, native plants have been overtaken and replaced by non-native plants such as autumn olive, multiflora rose, bush honeysuckle, privet, Oriental bittersweet, buckthorn, and Japanese honeysuckle. Over 3,400 species of alien plants have invaded over 200 million acres of the U.S.
Why does it matter?
When we present insects with non-native plants that evolved on another continent, chances are those insects will be unable to eat them and soon die or relocate. This sounds like a good idea, but without those insects, a plant can’t pass on the energy it has harnessed and won’t fulfill its role in the food web. Non-native plant species support 29 times fewer animals than native plants.
Wildlife needs food and shelter to survive and reproduce, and in too many places, we have eliminated both. It is estimated that as many as 33,000 species of plants and animals in the US are now imperiled – too rare to perform their role in their ecosystem. These species can be considered functionally extinct. The songbirds have been in decline since the 1960s, having lost 40 percent of their numbers so far. Over 100 species of neotropical migrants are in steep decline. A recent survey of our nation’s bird populations found that one-third of our nation’s birds are endangered.
Can we do anything to reverse the loss of biodiversity?
Each of us can play a role in reversing the loss of biodiversity. Our properties are places that can support wildlife, and each plot represents a crucial opportunity to sustain plants and animals that were once widespread throughout the U.S.
Here’s the basic idea: All animals get their energy directly from plants or by consuming something that has eaten a plant. Insects are vital in transferring energy from plants to animals that cannot consume plants themselves. Many animals rely on insects for food, so removing insects from an ecosystem would lead to its collapse. When we introduce non-native plants to our local insects, these insects often cannot consume them, disrupting the energy flow in the food web.
Functional native landscapes significantly contribute to biodiversity. We need to design landscapes with nature in mind to reverse the decline in biodiversity. To prevent further species extinction that could ultimately impact humans, we must consider how our landscapes function in the natural cycle rather than just focusing on their visual appeal.
To promote biodiversity, we should increase the number of native trees in our lawns. Examples of native trees include white oaks, black willows, red maples, green ashes, black walnuts, river birches, and shagbark hickories. Underplanting these trees with native understory and shrub layers, such as serviceberry, bottlebrush buckeye, arrowwood, hazelnut, and blueberries, can also enhance biodiversity.
Research has shown that even modest increases in native plant coverage on suburban properties can increase the number and variety of breeding birds, including those of conservation concern.
As gardeners and stewards of the land, we can significantly contribute to preserving biodiversity by planting native plants grown by quality native plant nurseries that grow diverse native species, from perennial wildflowers to trees. Forrest Keeling Nursery is North America’s largest native plant nursery. They produce nearly 400 native species using their patented RPM-production technology, which speeds up flowering, fruiting, and growth by 2X.