Bird communities along urbanization gradients: a comparative analysis among three neotropical cities

LUCAS M. LEVEAU; CARLOS M LEVEAU; MARIANA VILLEGAS; JAIME A. CURSACH; CRISTIAN G. SUAZO

ORNITOLOGIA NEOTROPICAL

NEOTROPICAL ORNITHOLOGICAL SOC

Lugar: ALEMANIA; Año: 2017 vol. 28 p. 77 - 87

1075-4377

Urbanization is expanding continuously over rural and natural areas and it is imperative to analyze its effect on bird communities. Although the impact of urbanization on bird communities in the Neotropical region has been explored by several authors, there is a scarcity of comparative studies with standardized methodologies that allow establishing whether the effects of urbanization are similar in different ecoregions. We analyzed the urbanization impact on bird communities in three Neotropical cities. Cities were located in different biomes: La Paz (Bolivia) surrounded by a highland plateau and inter‐Andean valleys; Mar del Plata (Argentina) surrounded by agroecosystems of the pampas; and Osorno (Chile), surrounded by agroecosystems, timber plantations, and remnants of temperate forests. In general, high levels of urbanization correlated negatively with bird richness in the three cities, but the response of bird richness to urbanization varied among cities, being linearly negative in La Paz and Osorno and declining only towards high levels of urbanization in Mar del Plata. The effect of urbanization was stronger in La Paz, where more bird species were absent toward higher urbanization levels. Bird abundance did not show significant responses to urbanization. Exotic bird abundance showed a positive relationship with urbanization in the three cities. Bird composition differed between cities and urbanization levels. The House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) was the most abundant species in more urbanized sites, the Eared Dove (Zenaida auriculata) in moderate levels of urbanization, whereas the Rufous‐collared Sparrow (Zonotrichia capensis) was most abundant in the less urbanized sites. The results of our study showed that the impact of urbanization on bird communities in the Neotropical region varied among cities, probably as a result of latitude and the structure of rural areas.