Authors: Martelli, Francesca; Scott, Alister James;Goddard, Mark ;Baldock, Katherine;

Habitat loss, including increasing urbanization, is a key driver of pollinating insect decline. Allotment gardens offer multiple socio-economic benefits, including food production, and can also improve the heterogeneity of urban landscapes acting as pollinator hotspots through the provision of floral resources. Allotment management is potentially driven by socio-economic factors which could influence ecological features and therefore pollinator community structure.
I use an interdisciplinary research design to assess the role of socio-economic drivers in structuring insect pollinator communities in allotment gardens in Tyneside (UK). I sampled along a deprivation gradient to address the following questions: (1) Does the “luxury effect” - positing that neighbourhoods with higher SES (socioeconomic status) have higher biodiversity than neighbourhoods with lower SES - hold for pollinators in allotment gardens? (2) How do socio-economic factors affect allotment management and the provision of floral resources? (3) How do gardeners’ perceptions of pollinators change across socio-economic groups?
Plant-pollinator interactions and floral resources were sampled in allotment sites. I used social surveys to collect information about garden management, socio-demographic features and biodiversity perception.
I present my preliminary findings and discuss the evidence for the luxury effect, to assess how to improve garden management to benefit pollinator communities in urban landscapes.