Wetlands play an important role in the feeding, breeding, and lives of birds. However, available habitats for bird species are changing due to intensifying human activity, especially in the context of China’s mass urbanization. Urban sprawl has taken over the wetlands along the lakes in the past decades, which places tremendous pressure on wetland ecosystems and, therefore, on bird communities. However, the ways urban land cover pattern along the urban-rural gradient affects bird communities is still unclear. To investigate the influence of land cover pattern on the α and β diversity of birds in the urban-rural gradient we chose 31 sites distributed within the wetlands around the Dianchi Lake in Yunnan, China. We calculated the species richness to indicate α diversity and used the Morisita–Horn index to indicate β diversity. Meanwhile, we assessed the land cover pattern of each site by measuring the proportion of emergent plants, floating plants, submerged plants, ponds, forests, lawns, roads, agricultural lands and built lands in a quadrat of 1 square kilometer. Simple linear regressions, model selection, and an averaging approach based on corrected Akaike information criterion (AICc) were used to test the effects of land cover pattern on bird diversity. Using one-way ANOVA and Tukey’s HSD (honestly significant difference) test, we compared the difference between α and β diversity, respectively, along the urban-rural gradient. Based on our analyses, urban and suburban wetland birds were significantly homogeneous. The community structure in rural wetlands, however, was significantly different from that of the suburban and urban areas. According to our research, the land cover patterns that influenced bird species richness were the built lands acreage, submerged plants acreage, ponds acreage, and the edge density of emergent plants. Meanwhile, of these variables, the built lands acreage, ponds acreage and edge density of emergent plants were significantly different in urban, suburban, and rural wetlands. Therefore, to maintain high biodiversity in wetlands affected by urbanization, we must pay more attention to the land cover patterns.

Several studies have revealed that urban rivers with relatively complete habitat structures can support a high level of biodiversity in urban areas. However, few studies have analyzed the impact of the plan, design, and management of multi-scale urban riverside green space on bird communities by assessing several aspects of diversity (e.g., taxonomic and functional). In this study, we explored bird community variation (taxonomic and functional) among three rivers (28 sampling sites) with different levels of human disturbance along the urban development gradient in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China, during an annual cycle. This study related bird species richness and functional diversity to environmental variables at three spatial scales: landscape metrics at two different landscape scales (500 and 100 m radius) and vegetation structure at patch scales (20 m radius). Using partial least squares regression (PLSR) and multiple linear regression, we found that bird species richness and functional diversity were strongly related to various landscape- and patch-level variables. Multiple linear regression models revealed that, compared with the richness influenced by explanatory variables on three spatial scales (500, 100, and 20 m), the functional diversity was significantly influenced by explanatory variables on the 100 and 20 m scales. Tree cover at the 20 m scale had significantly positive impacts on bird species richness and functional diversity. Forest land in the 100 m scale had a significantly positive effect on bird species richness and functional diversity, while construction land in the two landscape scales (the 500- and 100 m scales) had a significantly negative effect on species richness. Accordingly, we suggest that urban riverside green space should be planned and managed at multiple scales.