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Habitat patch size and tree species richness shape the bird community in urban green spaces of rapidly urbanizing Himalayan foothill region of India

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Abstract

Rapid urbanization is emerging as one of the leading threats to the biodiversity globally. But is especially a cause of concern for tropical countries which are urbanizing much faster and with relatively less urban planning than temperate ones. Urban green spaces are established to reduce the negative impacts of urbanization by conserving a large suite of species. Yet our knowledge on the significance of urban green spaces for supporting urban fauna and enhancing species richness is lacking for tropical countries such as India. We examined how landscape and local scale features of urban green spaces influence bird species richness, density, fine-foraging guild richness and composition during breeding and non-breeding season in Dehradun, India. We quantified landscape level variables in the 250 m buffer around 18 urban green spaces. We sampled vegetation and bird community during breeding and non-breeding season through 52 intensive sampling point spread across 18 urban green spaces. Size of the urban green space at landscape level and tree species richness at the local scale emerged as important predictors influencing bird species richness, density and richness of imperilled insectivorous guild across seasons. Urban green spaces within education institutions and offices experiencing less vegetation management supported higher bird species richness and density whereas city parks were species poor. Community composition was affected more strongly by built-up cover and barren area in the landscape matrix and also by tree species richness at the local scale within urban green spaces. City planners should focus on allocating green spaces within urban settings and expand the formal green spaces. Existing green spaces could be improved by augmenting compositional and structural heterogeneity of vegetation as well as conservation of large old native trees.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Rufford foundation for providing the small grant (Grant ID: 26698-1) to fund this research. We also thank Dr. V B Mathur, Director (Wildlife Institute of India), Dr. Geetika Mathur (Model School for visually handicapped), Saurabh Shanu (University of Petroleum and Energy Studies), Director General of Uttarakhand State Council for Science and Technology (Vigyan Dham), Archana Bahuguna (Zoological Survey of India), staff of Tourism Office, Indu Singh, (Mahadevi Kanya Pathshala), for facilitating data collection in their institution’s premises. We are thankful to Oindrila Basu, Aashu tomar, Sipu kumar, Shilky, Rachna Yadav, Mangal Singh Bisht, Ananthu P, Jason B. Coutinho, Partho Sarathi, and Saloni Singh for their voluntary help for assisting ST and KM in data collection. We are immensely grateful to Inam Ali for assisting us in bird and vegetation sampling. We are extremely grateful to the comments and suggestions received from the two anonymous reviewers on the earlier version of this manuscript.

Funding

This study was supported by the Rufford foundation’s small grant to MK (Grant ID: 26698-1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Human Ecology, Ambedkar University Delhi, Kashmere Gate Campus, New Delhi, Delhi, India

    Monica Kaushik

  2. Himachal Pradesh Forest Department, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India

    Samakshi Tiwari

  3. Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

    Kumari Manisha

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  1. Monica Kaushik
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  2. Samakshi Tiwari
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  3. Kumari Manisha
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MK conceptualized and designed the study. Data was collected by ST and KM under the supervision of MK. Data analysis was carried out by ST, KM and MK. The first draft of the manuscript was written by MK and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Monica Kaushik.

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Kaushik, M., Tiwari, S. & Manisha, K. Habitat patch size and tree species richness shape the bird community in urban green spaces of rapidly urbanizing Himalayan foothill region of India. Urban Ecosyst 25, 423–436 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-021-01165-9

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