Effects of Urban Park Management Practices on Mesofaune Communities
Résumé
Aim: The increasing urbanisation of territories is at the heart of many societal and environmental issues. In cities, green spaces and especially parks appear to be essential places for the conservation of biodiversity. However, questions arise about how to manage urban parks in order to satisfy the needs of citizens and above all to conserve biodiversity. Urban soils and their biodiversity provide important ecosystem services, although they are still understudied. The objective here was to compare the mesofauna communities, in terms of structure and composition, according to three management practices in a Parisian urban park.
Method: The mesofauna was sampled in spring 2021 in Suzanne Lenglen Park (Paris, France) in areas of lawn, heavily mown grassland, and lightly mown grassland. Mesofauna was extracted with a MacFadyen extractor. Soil physico-chemical analyses were also carried out.
Results: The average springtails density values obtained are broadly in the same range as those found in the literature. Springtails density did not differ significantly between the three management practices, although there was a trend towards lower density in the heavily mown grassland. Mesofauna community composition is still being processed. The management method did not affect moisture in this study.
Conclusions: This preliminary study provides an overview of management methods' impact on mesofauna communities. In order to verify these conclusions, we repeated the measurements in 2022 whose results are currently being analysed. In 2023 we will extend our sampling to more Parisian parks with the same management practices.