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Bird community responses to the edge between suburbs and reserves

  • Community ecology - Original research
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Abstract

New insights into community-level responses at the urban fringe, and the mechanisms underlying them, are needed. In our study, we investigated the compositional distinctiveness and variability of a breeding bird community at both sides of established edges between suburban residential areas and woodland reserves in Canberra, Australia. Our goals were to determine if: (1) community-level responses were direct (differed with distance from the edge, independent of vegetation) or indirect (differed in response to edge-related changes in vegetation), and (2) if guild-level responses provided the mechanism underpinning community-level responses. We found that suburbs and reserves supported significantly distinct bird communities. The suburban bird community, characterised by urban-adapted native and exotic species, had a weak direct edge response, with decreasing compositional variability with distance from the edge. In comparison, the reserve bird community, characterised by woodland-dependent species, was related to local tree and shrub cover. This was not an indirect response, however, as tree and shrub cover was not related to edge distance. We found that the relative richness of nesting, foraging and body size guilds also displayed similar edge responses, indicating that they underpinned the observed community-level responses. Our study illustrates how community-level responses provide valuable insights into how communities respond to differences in resources between two contrasting habitats. Further, the effects of the suburban matrix penetrate into reserves for greater distances than previously thought. Suburbs and adjacent reserves, however, provided important habitat resources for many native species and the conservation of these areas should not be discounted from continued management strategies.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to S. Holliday for invaluable field assistance. Thanks to P. Olsen, M. Evans, R. Cunningham, J. Wood, J. Hanspach, J. and J. Stein, C. Davey, J. Bounds, M. J. Evans, L. Rayner and P. Lentini for their many and varied contributions to the study’s experimental design and manuscript preparation. Thanks to T. Laaksonen, J. Jokimaki, L. Ries and one other anonymous reviewer for comments that improved the manuscript. Thanks to S. Lane and staff from ACT Parks, Conservation and Lands and R. Thorman and staff from ACT Land Development Agency for their assistance. K. I. thanks the Wildlife Preservation Society of Australia for granting a University Wildlife Conservation Grants Award and Birds Australia for granting a Stuart Leslie Bird Research Award. K. I. was the recipient of the Molonglo PhD Scholarship, jointly funded by the Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, and Parks, Conservation and Lands, the ACT Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    Karen Ikin, Philip S. Barton, Emma Knight, David B. Lindenmayer, Joern Fischer & Adrian D. Manning

  2. Centre for Mathematics and its Applications, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    Emma Knight

  3. Institute of Ecology, Leuphana University Lueneburg, 21335, Lueneburg, Germany

    Joern Fischer

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  1. Karen Ikin
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Correspondence to Karen Ikin.

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Communicated by Toni Laaksonen.

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Ikin, K., Barton, P.S., Knight, E. et al. Bird community responses to the edge between suburbs and reserves. Oecologia 174, 545–557 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-013-2793-6

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