Abstract
Birds are a prominent component of urban biodiversity yet many species, particularly forest-dependent birds, are vulnerable to landscape transformation. We examined the relative influence of three factors that potentially influence forest bird communities in residential areas of Melbourne, Australia: (i) local habitat attributes; (ii) types of land use; and (iii) biotic interactions with an aggressive native species, the noisy miner (Manorina melanocephala). We also investigated characteristics of urban sites that contribute most to landscape-level diversity of forest species. We systematically surveyed forest birds at 300 sites in a range of urban land-uses; with sites clustered in 30 landscapes representing gradients in housing cover and tree cover. Composition and richness of forest bird communities differed among land-use types: sites with greater cover of native canopy trees had a distinct and richer avifauna. However, a pervasive influence on communities was the relative abundance of the noisy miner, a native species that aggressively excludes small insectivores. Sites in native vegetation made the greatest contribution to landscape-level richness of forest birds, but also were negatively influenced by noisy miner occurrence. The dominance of the noisy miner poses a challenge for conservation because actions to improve urban habitat for forest species may also benefit this aggressive species. Conservation of forest birds will depend on larger forest tracts, fringing residential areas, which are less suitable for the noisy miner and serve as potential source populations for forest species. Within residential areas, enhancing understorey complexity with native shrubs and mid-storey will help improve urban habitats for forest birds.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The datasets analyzed in this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
References
Ashley LC, Major RE, Taylor CE (2009) Does the presence of grevilleas and eucalypts in urban gardens influence the distribution and foraging ecology of noisy miners? Emu 109:135–142. https://doi.org/10.1071/MU07043
Barati A, Etezadifar F, McDonald PG (2016) Fragmentation in eucalypt woodlands promotes nest-tree occupancy by a despotic species, the noisy miner (Manorina melanocephala). Austral Ecol 41:897–905. https://doi.org/10.1111/aec.12382
Barth BJ, FitzGibbon SI, Wilson RS (2015) New urban developments that retain more remnant trees have greater bird diversity. Landsc Urban Plan 136:122–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2014.11.003
Barton K (2020) MuMIn: Multi-model inference. R package version 1.47.1. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=MuMIn
Belaire JA, Whelan CJ, Minor ES (2014) Having our yards and sharing them too: the collective effects of yards on native bird species in an urban landscape. Ecol Appl 24:2132–2143. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-2259.1
Bennett AF, Holland GJ, Haslem A et al (2022) Restoration promotes recovery of woodland birds in agricultural environments: a comparison of ‘revegetation’ and ‘remnant’ landscapes. J Appl Ecol 59:1334–1346. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14148
Blair RB (1996) Land use and avian species diversity along an urban gradient. Ecol Appl 6:506–519. https://doi.org/10.2307/2269387
Blair RB, Johnson EM (2008) Suburban habitats and their role for birds in the urban-rural habitat network: points of local invasion and extinction? Landsc Ecol 23:1157–1169. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-008-9267-y
Bureau of Meteorology (2022) Bureau of Meteorology. http://www.bom.gov.au/. Accessed 5 Jul 2022
Burnham K, Anderson D (2002) Model selection and multimodel inference: a practical information-theoretic approach, 2nd edn. Springer-Verlag, New York
Bush J, Oke C, Dickey A et al (2023) A decade of nature: evolving approaches to Melbourne’s ‘nature in the city.’ Landsc Urban Plan 235:104754. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2023.104754
Callaghan CT, Major RE, Wilshire JH et al (2019) Generalists are the most urban-tolerant of birds: a phylogenetically controlled analysis of ecological and life history traits using a novel continuous measure of bird responses to urbanization. Oikos 128:845–858. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.06158
Campbell CE, Jones DN, Awasthy M et al (2022) Big changes in backyard birds: an analysis of long-term changes in bird communities in Australia’s most populous urban regions. Biol Conserv 272:109671. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109671
Catterall CP (2004) Birds, garden plants and suburban bushlots: where good intentions meet unexpected outcomes. In: Lunney D (ed) Urban Wildlife: more than meets the Eye. Royal Zoological Society of NSW, Sydney, Burgin, pp 21–31
Champness BS, Palmer GC, Fitzsimons JA (2019) Bringing the city to the country: relationships between streetscape vegetation type and bird assemblages in a major regional centre. J Urban Ecol 5:1–11. https://doi.org/10.1093/jue/juz018
Colléony A, Shwartz A (2020) When the winners are the losers: invasive alien bird species outcompete the native winners in the biotic homogenization process. Biol Conserv 241:108314. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108314
Conole LE, Kirkpatrick JB (2011) Functional and spatial differentiation of urban bird assemblages at the landscape scale. Landsc Urban Plan 100:11–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2010.11.007
Cooper CB, Dickinson J, Phillips T, Bonney R (2007) Citizen science as a tool for conservation in residential ecosystems. Ecol Soc 12:11
Daniels GD, Kirkpatrick JB (2006) Does variation in garden characteristics influence the conservation of birds in suburbia? Biol Conserv 133:326–335. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2006.06.011
Davis RA, Gole C, Roberts JD (2013) Impacts of urbanisation on the native avifauna of Perth, Western Australia. Urban Ecosyst 16:427–452. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-012-0275-y
Department of Environment Land Water and Planning (2021) Bioregions and EVC benchmarks. https://www.environment.vic.gov.au/biodiversity/bioregions-and-evc-benchmarks. Accessed 8 Jul 2022
Dormann CF, Elith J, Bacher S et al (2013) Collinearity: a review of methods to deal with it and a simulation study evaluating their performance. Ecography (Cop) 36:27–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2012.07348.x
Dow DD (1977) Indiscriminate interspecific aggression leading to almost sole occupancy of space by a single species of bird. Emu 77:115–121. https://doi.org/10.1071/MU9770115
eBird (2023) eBird: An online database of bird distribution and abundance. http://www.ebird.org. Accessed 4 Oct 2023
Eyre TJ, Maron M, Mathieson MT, Haseler M (2009) Impacts of grazing, selective logging and hyper-aggressors on diurnal bird fauna in intact forest landscapes of the Brigalow Belt, Queensland. Austral Ecol 34:705–716. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1442-9993.2009.01979.x
Fitzsimons JA, Antos MJ, Palmer GC (2011) When more is less: urban remnants support high bird abundance but diversity varies. Pac Conserv Biol 17:97–109. https://doi.org/10.1071/pc110097
Ford HA (2011) The causes of decline of birds of eucalypt woodlands: advances in our knowledge over the last 10 years. Emu 111:1–9. https://doi.org/10.1071/MU09115
Fraser H, Garrard GE, Rumpff L et al (2015) Consequences of inconsistently classifying woodland birds. Front Ecol Evol 3:83. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2015.00083
Galbreath DM, Ichinose T, Furutani T et al (2014) Urbanization and its implications for avian aggression: a case study of urban black kites (Milvus migrans) along Sagami Bay in Japan. Landsc Ecol 29:169–178. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-013-9951-4
García-Arroyo M, Santiago-Alarcon D, Quesada J, MacGregor-Fors I (2020) Are invasive house sparrows a nuisance for native avifauna when scarce? Urban Ecosyst 23:793–802. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-020-00963-x
Garrard GE, Williams NSG, Mata L et al (2018) Biodiversity sensitive urban design. Conserv Lett 11:1–10. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12411
Gaston KJ, Fuller RA, Loram A et al (2007) Urban domestic gardens (XI): variation in urban wildlife gardening in the United Kingdom. Biodivers Conserv 16:3227–3238. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-007-9174-6
Geschke A, James S, Bennett AF, Nimmo DG (2018) Compact cities or sprawling suburbs? Optimising the distribution of people in cities to maximise species diversity. J Appl Ecol 55:2320–2331. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13183
Goddard MA, Dougill AJ, Benton TG (2013) Why garden for wildlife? Social and ecological drivers, motivations and barriers for biodiversity management in residential landscapes. Ecol Econ 86:258–273. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.07.016
Grey MJ, Clarke MF, Loyn RH (1997) Initial changes in the avian communities of remnant eucalypt woodlands following a reduction in the abundance of noisy miners, Manorina melanocephala. Wildl Res 24:631–648. https://doi.org/10.1071/WR96080
Haslem A, Bennett AF (2008) Birds in agricultural mosaics: the influence of landscape pattern and countryside heterogeneity. Ecol Appl 18:185–196. https://doi.org/10.1890/07-0692.1
Hastings RA, Beattie AJ, Hastings R (2006) Stop the bullying in the corridors: can including shrubs make your revegetation more noisy miner free? Ecol Manag Restor 7:105–112. https://doi.org/10.1111/j1442-8903.2006.00264.x
Heggie-Gracie SD, Krull CR, Stanley MC (2020) Urban divide: predictors of bird communities in forest fragments and the surrounding urban matrix. Emu 120:333–342. https://doi.org/10.1080/01584197.2020.1857650
Hudson K, Catterall CP, Mcnamara S, Kingston MB (1997) How useful are small but lightly treed suburban parks for forest birds in Brisbane? The Sunbird 27:57–64. https://doi.org/10.3316/informit.162282788892674
Humphrey JE, Haslem A, Bennett AF (2023) Housing or habitat: what drives patterns of avian species richness in urbanized landscapes? Landsc Ecol 38:1919–1937. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01666-2
Ibañez L, Palacio FX, Maragliano RE, Montalti D (2023) The presence of an invasive bird, the common starling, in an urban landscape: habitat use and relationships with other bird species. J Ornithol. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-023-02047-x
Ikin K, Knight E, Lindenmayer DB et al (2013) The influence of native versus exotic streetscape vegetation on the spatial distribution of birds in suburbs and reserves. Divers Distrib 19:294–306. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-4642.2012.00937.x
Ives CD, Lentini PE, Threlfall CG et al (2016) Cities are hotspots for threatened species. Glob Ecol Biogeogr 25:117–126. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12404
Lerman SB, Narango DL, Avolio ML et al (2021) Residential yard management and landscape cover affect urban bird community diversity across the continental USA. Ecol Appl 31:e02455. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2455
Liu Z, He C, Wu J (2016) The relationship between habitat loss and fragmentation during urbanization: an empirical evaluation from 16 world cities. PLoS ONE 11:e0154613. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0154613
Loyn RH, Menkhorst P (2011) The bird fauna of Melbourne: changes over a century of urban growth and climate change, using a benchmark from Keartland (1900). Vic Nat 128:210–232
MacGregor-Fors I, Ortega-Álvarez R (2011) Fading from the forest: Bird community shifts related to urban park site-specific and landscape traits. Urban For Urban Green 10:239–246. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2011.03.004
MacGregor-Fors I, Schondube JE (2011) Gray vs. green urbanization: relative importance of urban features for urban bird communities. Basic Appl Ecol 12:372–381. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2011.04.003
MacNally R, Bowen M, Howes A et al (2012) Despotic, high-impact species and the subcontinental scale control of avian assemblage structure. Ecology 93:668–678. https://doi.org/10.1890/10-2340.1
Maron M, Grey MJ, Catterall CP et al (2013) Avifaunal disarray due to a single despotic species. Divers Distrib 19:1468–1479. https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12128
Marshall AJ, Grose MJ, Williams NSG (2019) From little things: more than a third of public green space is road verge. Urban For Urban Green 44:126423. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2019.126423
McGarigal K, McComb WC (1995) Relationships between landscape structure and breeding birds in the Oregon Coast Range. Ecol Monogr 65:235–256. https://doi.org/10.2307/2937059
McKinney ML (2006) Urbanization as a major cause of biotic homogenization. Biol Conserv 127:247–260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2005.09.005
Melton CB, Reside AE, Simmonds JS et al (2021) Evaluating the evidence of culling a native species for conservation benefits. Conserv Sci Pract 3:e549. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.549
Menkhorst P, Rogers D, Clarke R et al (2017) The Australian Bird Guide. CSIRO Publishing, Clayton South, Victoria, Australia
Merenlender AM, Reed SE, Heise KL (2009) Exurban development influences woodland bird composition. Landsc Urban Plan 92:255–263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2009.05.004
Minor E, Urban D (2010) Forest bird communities across a gradient of urban development. Urban Ecosyst 13:51–71. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-009-0103-1
Miranda AC, Schielzeth H, Sonntag T, Partecke J (2013) Urbanization and its effects on personality traits: a result of microevolution or phenotypic plasticity? Glob Chang Biol 19:2634–2644. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12258
Muff S, Nilsen EB, O’Hara RB, Nater CR (2022) Rewriting results sections in the language of evidence. Trends Ecol Evol 37:203–210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2021.10.009
Oksanen J, Blanchet FG, Friendly M, Kindt R, Legendre P, McGlinn D, Minchin P, O’Hara RB, Simpson G, Solymos P, Stevens MHH, Szöcs E, Wagner H (2020) vegan: Community ecology package. R package version 2.5-7. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=vegan
Ortega-Álvarez R, MacGregor-Fors I (2009) Living in the big city: effects of urban land-use on bird community structure, diversity, and composition. Landsc Urban Plan 90:189–195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2008.11.003
Paker Y, Yom-Tov Y, Alon-Mozes T, Barnea A (2014) The effect of plant richness and urban garden structure on bird species richness, diversity and community structure. Landsc Urban Plan 122:186–195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2013.10.005
Palmer GC, Fitzsimons JA, Antos MJ, White JG (2008) Determinants of native avian richness in suburban remnant vegetation: implications for conservation planning. Biol Conserv 141:2329–2341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2008.06.025
Parsons H (2007) Best practice guidelines for enhancing urban bird habitat: Scientific report. Birds in Backyards Program, BirdLife Australia. Sydney, NSW, Australia. https://www.birdsinbackyards.net/
Parsons H, Major RE, French K (2006) Species interactions and habitat associations of birds inhabiting urban areas of Sydney, Australia. Austral Ecol 31:217–227. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1442-9993.2006.01584.x
Paton GD, Shoffner AV, Wilson AM, Gagné SA (2019) The traits that predict the magnitude and spatial scale of forest bird responses to urbanization intensity. PLoS ONE 14:e0220120. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220120
Peacock DS, Van Rensburg BJ, Robertson MP (2007) The distribution and spread of the invasive alien common myna, Acridotheres tristis L. (Aves: Sturnidae), in southern Africa. S Afr J Sci 103:465–473
Pidgeon AM, Radeloff VC, Flather CH et al (2007) Associations of forest bird species richness with housing and landscape patterns across the USA. Ecol Appl 17:1989–2010
Piper SD, Catterall CP (2003) A particular case and a general pattern: hyperaggressive behaviour by one species may mediate avifaunal decreases in fragmented Australian forests. Oikos 101:602–614. https://doi.org/10.1034/j.1600-0706.2003.12292.x
Plummer KE, Gillings S, Siriwardena GM (2020) Evaluating the potential for bird-habitat models to support biodiversity-friendly urban planning. J Appl Ecol 57:1902–1914. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13703
Pocock MJO, Tweddle JC, Savage J et al (2017) The diversity and evolution of ecological and environmental citizen science. PLoS ONE 12:e0172579. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172579
R Core Team (2022) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/
Radford JQ, Bennett AF (2005) Terrestrial avifauna of the Gippsland Plain and Strzelecki Ranges, Victoria, Australia: insights from Atlas data. Wildl Res 32:531–555. https://doi.org/10.1071/WR04012
RStudio Team (2022) RStudio: Integrated development for R (2022.12.0+353 “Elsbeth Geranium” Release). RStudio. http://www.rstudio.com/
Sewell SR, Catterall CP (1998) Bushland modification and styles of urban development: their effects on birds in south-east Queensland. Wildl Res 25:41–63. https://doi.org/10.1071/WR96078
Shahabuddin G, Goswami R, Krishnadas M, Menon T (2021) Decline in forest bird species and guilds due to land use change in the Western Himalaya. Glob Ecol Conserv 25:e01447. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e01447
Shochat E, Lerman S, Fernández-Juricic E (2010) Birds in urban ecosystems: Population dynamics, community structure, biodiversity, and conservation. In: Aitkenhead-Peterson J, Volder A (eds) Urban ecosystem ecology. American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America
Shoffner A, Wilson AM, Tang W, Gagné SA (2018) The relative effects of forest amount, forest configuration, and urban matrix quality on forest breeding birds. Sci Rep 8:17140. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-35276-9
Smith P, Smith J (2020) Radical changes in the avifauna of a Sydney suburb, 1971–2014. Aust J Zool 67:185–198. https://doi.org/10.1071/ZO20019
Soanes K, Lentini PE (2019) When cities are the last chance for saving species. Front Ecol Environ 17:225–231. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2032
Soh MCK, Sodhi NS, Lim SLH (2006) High sensitivity of montane bird communities to habitat disturbance in Peninsular Malaysia. Biol Conserv 129:149–166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2005.10.030
Sorace A, Gustin M (2010) Bird species of conservation concern along urban gradients in Italy. Biodivers Conserv 19:205–221. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-009-9716-1
Stagoll K, Manning AD, Knight E et al (2010) Using bird-habitat relationships to inform urban planning. Landsc Urban Plan 98:13–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2010.07.006
Suárez-Castro AF, Maron M, Mitchell MGE, Rhodes JR (2022) Disentangling direct and indirect effects of landscape structure on urban bird richness and functional diversity. Ecol Appl. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2713
Taylor L, Taylor C, Davis A (2013) The impact of urbanisation on avian species: the inextricable link between people and birds. Urban Ecosyst 16:481–498. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-012-0283-y
Theobald DM (2005) Landscape patterns of exurban growth in the USA from 1980 to 2020. Ecol Soc 10(1). http://www.jstor.org/stable/26267722
Thibault M, Vidal E, Potter MA et al (2018) The invasive Red-vented bulbul (Pycnonotus cafer) outcompetes native birds in a tropical biodiversity hotspot. PLoS ONE 13:e0192249. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0192249
van Heezik Y, Smyth A, Mathieu R (2008) Diversity of native and exotic birds across an urban gradient in a New Zealand city. Landsc Urban Plan 87:223–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2008.06.004
Warringal Conservation Society (1981) Birds of Heidelberg and the Yarra Valley. Warringal Conservation Society, Rosanna
White JG, Antos MJ, Fitzsimons JA, Palmer GC (2005) Non-uniform bird assemblages in urban environments: the influence of streetscape vegetation. Landsc Urban Plan 71:123–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2004.02.006
Wickham H (2016) ggplot2: Elegant graphics for data analysis. Springer-Verlag, New York. https://ggplot2.tidyverse.org
Wood EM, Esaian S (2020) The importance of street trees to urban avifauna. Ecol Appl 30:e02149. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2149
Wood EM, Pidgeon AM, Radeloff VC et al (2014) Housing development erodes avian community structure in U.S. protected areas. Ecol Appl 24:1445–1462. https://doi.org/10.1890/12-1992.1
Young KM, Daniels CB, Johnston G (2007) Species of street tree is important for southern hemisphere bird trophic guilds. Austral Ecol 32:541–550. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1442-9993.2007.01726.x
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge that this work took place on the lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nations, and other lands where Traditional Owners are yet to be formally recognized. This work was funded by the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment and the Ecological Society of Australia, BirdLife Australia, the Australian Wildlife Society, and the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria. JEH was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Stipend Scholarship. We thank private landholders who provided access to their property. Thanks also to Jim Radford, Mike Clarke, Grace Sutton and the Landscape and Conservation Ecology group at La Trobe University for their input and feedback. This study was conducted with approval of the La Trobe University Animal Ethics Committee (approval no. AEC18-11) and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (permit no. 10008805).
Funding
This work was funded by the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment and the Ecological Society of Australia, BirdLife Australia, the Australian Wildlife Society, and the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria. JEH was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Stipend Scholarship.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Jacinta E. Humphrey: Conceptualization; Methodology; Funding acquisition; Project administration; Investigation; Formal analysis; Visualization; Writing – Original Draft; Writing – Review & Editing. Angie Haslem: Conceptualization; Methodology; Formal analysis; Writing – Review & Editing; Supervision. Andrew F. Bennett: Conceptualization; Methodology; Writing – Review & Editing; Supervision.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Humphrey, J.E., Haslem, A. & Bennett, A.F. The noisy neighbor conundrum: what influences the value of urban sites for forest birds?. Urban Ecosyst 27, 717–732 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-023-01478-x
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-023-01478-x