Lawn management promoting tall herbs, flowering species and urban park attributes enhance insect biodiversity in urban green areas

The dataset contatins the data used for the analyses, see original paper at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1618866724004485?via=ihub#sec0080File 1: "data_abundances_sprichness.csv" is for the regression analyses used in the original paper File 2: "Odination_data.zip" is for the ordination analyses used in the original paper Abstract: Urban expansion transforms the availability and structure of habitats, shaping urban biodiversity. This triggereda worldwide effort to reduce urbanization impact on biodiversity, mostly with biodiversity-friendly and less for-mal management in urban green areas. In this context, we evaluated the effect of lawn management promotingtall herbs on insect biodiversity in urban parks. Moreover, we also tested the interplay of mowing regimes andgreen-area attributes, such as park size and tree distribution, by recording the insect species richness and the to-tal and proportional abundances of several groups (i.e., honeybees, wild bees, wasps, hoverflies, non-syrphidflies, beetles, true bugs, grasshoppers, lepidopterans). The results from the first experimental year demonstratethat unmown sections increase insect abundance and species richness, while the regrowth after the first mowingof tall herbs was only moderately beneficial, compared to frequenlty mowed areas. Positive contributions byflower richness on the insect richness and by the aggregated tree distributions on insect abundance and richnesswere recorded. Negative relationships were between increasing graminoid cover and insect abundances and be-tween park size and insect richness. Furthermore, most insect groups were promoted by plant height (except hon-eybees and flies) and they correlated with specific dominant plants in many cases. Overall, this study demon-strates the positive roles of tall herbs in urban parks, clarifying the influence of park attributes and lawn features,pointing out that a less intensive management regime with informal green areas could effectively enhance urbaninsect biodiversity.