Urban refuges in winter: the role of habitat characteristics and supplementary feeding in shaping bird occupancy and abundance.

Autor: Šálek, Martin, Bažant, Miroslav, Vrána, Jakub, Grill, Stanislav, Václav, Radovan
Zdroj: Urban Ecosystems; Feb2025, Vol. 28 Issue 1, p1-10, 10p
Abstrakt: Urban environments can serve as critical overwintering habitats for many bird species due to the high availability of essential resources. Among the significant factors shaping bird assemblages is the widespread provision of supplementary feeding, which can increase avian species richness and abundance. However, how this effect varies among individual habitat types at various spatial scales remains largely unexplored. Using data from three small to medium-sized towns in the Czech Republic, (a temperate region of Central Europe), we found that observed species richness and bird abundance in winter were highest in allotments and old residential areas, and lowest in industrial and new residential housing areas. The results of multi-species occupancy modelling (MSOM) for eight dominant and widespread species revealed that habitat type has a more significant impact on community-level occupancy in urban landscapes than variations in major habitat attributes at different spatial scales. Supplementary feeding increased occupancy across all habitat types, with the largest increases observed in industrial and new residential areas. In turn, both habitat-attribute MSOMs indicated that community-level occupancy increased with the amount of green space. Similarly, using single-species N-mixture models, we found that habitat type was more important than habitat attributes for the abundance of eight dominant bird species. The presence of supplementary feeding increased bird abundance, but this was significant for only a few species. In conclusions, our findings illustrate that supplementary feeding significantly shapes winter bird communities. However, its effect is species-specific and more pronounced in low quality habitats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Databáze: Complementary Index