Artificial grass in parks as a potential new threat for urban bird communities

Abstract

Summary Green areas are key habitats for urban avifauna. Urban parks stand out from other anthropic habitats especially in providing trophic resources for many bird species. Consequently, modifications of these green zones can imply major changes in urban biodiversity. Potential pernicious urban remodelling is taking place in parks of eastern Spain because natural grass is being replaced with artificial grass to save water and to avoid management. This study aimed to determine whether remodelled parks with artificial grass harbour lower avian diversity (alpha, beta and gamma diversity) than traditional parks with natural grass. We surveyed 21 parks with artificial grass and 24 parks with natural grass in 18 towns of the Valencia Region in autumn 2020. In each park, we carried out 5-minute and 25-m radius point counts for determining bird species and their abundance. The effects of park area and grass type on alpha diversity (species richness, Shannon diversity index, Pielou’s Evenness and total abundance) were tested by means of GLMs. Differences in beta diversity and its components (nestedness and turnover) were also analyzed with the Bray-Curtis dissimilarity index. Gamma diversity was assessed by means of species accumulation curves. Finally, differences in community composition were tested by PERMANOVA and SIMPER tests. The parks with natural grass always harboured higher gamma diversity, species richness and abundance. Turnover was higher in parks with natural grass, whereas nestedness was higher in artificial grass parks. Differences in community composition were due mainly to abundance differences in common ground-feeding birds. We highlight that the trend of replacing natural by artificial grass in urban parks has harmful effects on urban bird communities and is a threat to bird conservation. Although artificial grass might save water, the effects on urban biodiversity should be carefully evaluated.

The Thermal Effect of Various Local Park Settings: A Simulation-Based Case Study of Sunshine Coast, Australia

“…This study also reveals that asphalt performs better than artificial grass, and paved footpaths perform better than artificial grass, dry grass, and bare soil, emphasising the importance of irrigated grass during periods with extreme conditions. In addition, artificial grass significantly increases the soil temperature, which endangers its characteristics and biodiversity, including shrubs planted around the artificial grass, a concern also stated by Sánchez-Sotomayor, Martín-Higuera, Gil-Delgado, Gálvez and Bernat-Ponce [41]. The increased surface temperature of the artificial grass also increases the heat stress on park users who are conducting activities close to ground level, such as playing or sitting on the artificial grass.…”

“…However, increased global warming has resulted in precipitation variability and increasing dry weather periods, substantially reducing soil water content, specifically in the upper layers, impacting the wilting point [40] and leading to grass and shrub failure. Instead of watering the grass in these green spaces to avoid failure, some city councils tend to install artificial grass to mitigate this issue and reduce maintenance requirements [30,41].…”

Comunidades de aves en barrios residenciales y en bosques implantados en médanos costeros de la localidad de Cariló, Argentina

“…En general, la relación entre diversidad funcional y urbanización es negativa (Li et al 2010;Pauw and Low 2012;Valente-Neto et al 2021;Leveau 2021a;Sánchez-Sotomayor et al 2022), aunque algunos estudios encontraron una relación positiva (Oliveira-Hagen et al 2017) y otros no hallaron una relación significativa (Palacio et al 2018;Leveau and Leveau 2020;. Respecto a la composición funcional, varios estudios encontraron que la urbanización favorece la presencia de especies de dieta y hábitat generalistas que anidan en edificios y son residentes (Pinho et al 2016;Palacio et al 2018;Leveau 2013aLeveau , 2022.…”

Eating in the city: Experimental effect of anthropogenic food resources on the body condition, nutritional status, and oxidative stress of an urban bioindicator passerine

“…Cities are a constant supply of diverse human food, but natural healthy food (seeds and invertebrates) are becoming less available in urban environments because green areas are progressively disappearing (Bernat‐Ponce et al, 2020; Peach et al, 2015; Sánchez‐Sotomayor et al, 2023). The most accessible resources in cities can be made up of the “junk food” that derives from scraps of human leftovers (Seress & Liker, 2015) found around rubbish containers or bar terraces (Bernat‐Ponce, Ferrer, et al, 2022; Bernat‐Ponce et al, 2019; Bokotey & Gorban, 2005; Tortosa et al, 2002).…”