Rapid urbanization and associated biodiversity loss is rampant globally but especially a cause of concern for developing countries. However, numerous studies investigating the role of urban green spaces have established their key role in conserving larger suites of species in urban area.Yet our knowledge is lopsided due to lag in research in developing countries. We examined how landscape and local scale features of urban green spaces influence bird species richness, density, fine-foraging guild richness and composition during breeding and non-breeding season. This is the first study of this nature in one the Himalayan states of India. We quantified landscape level variables in the 250m buffer around 18 urban green spaces. We sampled vegetation and bird community during breeding and non-breeding season through 52 intensive sampling point spread across 18 urban green spaces. Size of the urban green space at landscape level and tree richness at the local scale emerged as important predictor variables influencing bird species richness, density and richness of imperiled insectivorous guild across seasons. Urban green spaces within education institutions and offices experiencing much less management supported higher bird richness and density whereas city parks were the most species poor. Community composition was affected more strongly by built-up cover and barren area in the matrix and also by tree species richness within urban green spaces. City planners should focus on establishing larger city parks during design stage whereas biodiversity potential of the existing urban green spaces could be enhanced by selecting native tree and shrub species to increase overall habitat complexity.
Rapid urbanization and associated biodiversity loss is rampant globally but especially a cause of concern for developing countries. However, numerous studies investigating the role of urban green spaces have established their key role in conserving larger suites of species in urban areas. Yet our knowledge is lopsided due to lag in research in developing countries. We examined how landscape and local scale features of urban green spaces influence bird species richness, density, fine-foraging guild richness, and composition during breeding and non-breeding season. This is the first study of this nature in one of the Himalayan states of India. We quantified landscape-level variables in the 250m buffer around 18 urban green spaces. We sampled vegetation and bird community during breeding and non-breeding season through 52 intensive sampling points spread across 18 urban green spaces. The size of the urban green space at the landscape level and tree richness at the local scale emerged as important predictor variables influencing bird species richness, density, and richness of imperiled insectivorous guild across seasons. Urban green spaces within education institutions and offices experiencing much less management supported higher bird richness and density whereas city parks were the most species-poor. Community composition was affected more strongly by a built-up cover and barren area in the matrix and also by tree species richness within urban green spaces. City planners should focus on establishing larger city parks during the design stage whereas the biodiversity potential of the existing urban green spaces could be enhanced by selecting native tree and shrub species to increase overall habitat complexity.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.