Anthropogenic habitat modification causes nonlinear multiscale bird diversity declines

Abstract

Anthropogenic habitat modification is a leading contributor to biodiversity change, but it is unclear what factors, including scale, influence the magnitude of change. Changes in species richness and its scaling relationship across an anthropogenic gradient can be influenced by changes in the total number of individuals in each sample, the species abundance distribution, and/or the spatial arrangement of conspecific individuals. Here, we integrated continental‐scale citizen science data on bird occurrences across the contiguous United States – from eBird – with an analytical framework capable of dissecting the aforementioned biodiversity components to quantify bird diversity changes along an anthropogenic landscape habitat modification gradient. We found an overall decline in bird diversity along an anthropogenic modification gradient, with peak levels of bird diversity at low to moderate levels of modification. The magnitude of biodiversity change was greater at gamma than at alpha scales and was most strongly associated with a declining number of individuals along the anthropogenic gradient. Spatial species turnover was lower at higher impacted sites, but this was also due to the sampling of fewer individuals rather than changes in spatial species patchiness. Our results suggest that local‐scale management can promote bird diversity, especially at the natural–rural–suburban interface. Management efforts (e.g. managing natural habitat or preserving urban greenspaces against development) should be focused on creating, restoring, and preserving resources (e.g. nesting habitat, foraging resources) necessary for a large number of individuals, as this is the primary influence of diversity change along an anthropogenic gradient.