Do urban golf courses have the potential to contribute to the sustainability of urban biodiversity in Auckland, New Zealand?

Abstract

Human settlement and urbanisation have been the main drivers behind anthropogenic land transformation; a process which has effectively homogenised landscapes and created landforms that persist in complete contrast to natural systems, effectively reducing available habitat to disjunct patches and severely impairing the ability of animal and plant species to persist in the face of rapid change. Urban green spaces, particularly golf courses, represent an important resource for maintaining biodiversity in modified landscapes and acting as refuges for threatened species. As New Zealand’s fastest growing city, habitat and species loss is of increasing concern in Auckland as the city struggles to accommodate it’s expanding population. As a result, the urgency to find novel ways in which the effects of urbanisation can be mitigated is growing. Golf courses represent an untapped resource by which species preservation could occur. A study was undertaken in recognition of this to investigate whether Auckland’s urban golf courses possess the resources required to sustain urban biodiversity and determine how the composition of wildlife communities compare in respect to urban park reserves. Results indicate that the sizes of urban golf courses in Auckland range between 19 and 92 ha, up to 36 percent of which is dedicated to out-of-play wooded rough, suggesting urban golf courses can contain habitat areas large enough to serve a variety of species within the urban matrix. Sampled golf courses possessed significantly higher plant and bird species richness than comparative urban park reserves, and share relatively similar composition in some instances. This was largely attributed to the diversity of vegetation structure and habitat types available, characteristics which are common on golf courses and are not readily available elsewhere in the built matrix. Although there is evidence to suggest that urban golf courses in Auckland can provide the food and habitat resources required to support a number of taxa in the urban landscape, the inherent characteristics of these courses favoured exotic species and encouraged pest species colonisation. Such findings suggest a review of the current management practices is necessary in order to increase the capacity for golf courses make positive contributions to urban biodiversity.