Most urban green spaces (UGSs) today are under intensive maintenance practices, including mowing, cutting and/or chemical input, among many other practices. A growing body of research has questioned the biodiversity value of highly manicured UGSs and suggested the biodiversity potential of reduced-intensity maintenance regimes. However, the evidence for a relationship between maintenance and biodiversity in UGSs is still unclear and yet to be fully understood. This paper systematically reviews 92 published papers to examine this association. Our results showed a complex association between maintenance and biodiversity, mainly dependent on the type of maintenance practice studied and the measurement of biodiversity. Mowing was the predominant maintenance practice that had been investigated, and the evidence from these papers constantly reported a negative association between mowing intensity and various aspects of plant diversity. Similarly, reduced mowing intensity appeared to favour invertebrate diversity, yet many studies also found mixed associations as well as variations across taxonomic groups. The few studies on chemical input showed a negative association between the frequency of use of herbicides/pesticides/insecticides and the diversity of plants, invertebrates, and birds. Nuanced findings, including a non-linear association between maintenance intensity and biodiversity, and temporal/geographical differences, are discussed in this paper. This review offers insights for the development of biodiversity-friendly management strategies, highlighting existing research gaps and the need for further research concerning the maintenance-biodiversity link in UGSs.

中文翻译：

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城市绿地维护与生物多样性之间的关联：综述


如今，大多数城市绿地 (UGS) 都处于强化维护实践中，包括割草、切割和/或化学品投入等许多其他实践。越来越多的研究质疑高度修剪的地下储气库的生物多样性价值，并提出降低强度维护制度的生物多样性潜力。然而，地下储气库的维护与生物多样性之间关系的证据仍不清楚，尚未得到充分理解。本文系统地回顾了 92 篇已发表的论文来检验这种关联。我们的结果表明，维护与生物多样性之间存在复杂的关联，主要取决于所研究的维护实践的类型和生物多样性的测量。割草是已调查的主要维护实践，这些论文的证据不断报道割草强度与植物多样性各个方面之间的负相关关系。同样，减少割草强度似乎有利于无脊椎动物的多样性，但许多研究也发现了混合关联以及不同分类群之间的差异。关于化学输入的少数研究表明，除草剂/杀虫剂/杀虫剂的使用频率与植物、无脊椎动物和鸟类的多样性之间存在负相关。本文讨论了细微的发现，包括维护强度和生物多样性之间的非线性关联以及时间/地理差异。本综述为制定生物多样性友好型管理战略提供了见解，强调了现有的研究差距以及对地下储气库中维护与生物多样性联系进行进一步研究的必要性。