Responses of Urban Bird Assemblages to Land-Sparing and Land-Sharing Development Styles in Two Argentinian Cities

MAXIMILIANO CRISTALDI ; IANINA GODOY ; LUCAS LEVEAU

Animals

Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute

Año: 2023

2076-2615

Urbanization negatively affects biodiversity worldwide. As cities are expected to grow in the future, alternative urban developments which allow the conservation of biodiversity within cities are required. Our main aim was to compare the response of bird assemblages to two alternative urban development styles (land-sparing vs. land-sharing) in two Argentinian cities: Santa Fe and Buenos Aires. Additionally, we assessed the response of bird assemblages to landscape features (the coverage of vegetation and distance to the main rivers) and human activity (represented by pedestrian rate and environmental noise). In Buenos Aires, land-sparing enhanced species richness, whereas land-sharing favored the Shannon diversity and Simpson diversity. The pedestrian traffic was negatively associated with bird diversity. We found that each urban development style supported different bird assemblages during the breeding season. Bird species composition was also related to the surrounding coverage of vegetation. Therefore, our study shows that both urban development styles support different bird assemblages, especially during the breeding season, and indicate the need of reducing pedestrian traffic and increasing the coverage of vegetation to enhance species diversity and composition in both cities.