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BIRD DIVERSITY IN URBAN PARKS DEPENDS ON PRESENCE OF VERY LARGE TREES

Ivo Machar

Abstract

Bird studies in urban parks support our better understanding to impacts of urbanization on natural forest habitats. This study is based on field census of nesting birds in urban parks of Olomouc heritage city (Czech Republic). Bird community in urban parks was compared with previous author?s bird study in hardwood floodplain forest near the Olomouc city. For characteristics of bird communities, Jaccard index, standard diversity index and equitability index were used. Comparison indicated high similarity of bird diversity between both habitats (man-made urban park and natural floodplain forests). Explanation of these results are briefly discussed in the frame of presence of very large trees in both habitats, which provide important nesting and foraging sites for birds. There are any implications for management of urban green areas – maintaining of very large trees provide conservation of bird diversity. This study indicated that urban bird diversity significantly responses to presence of individual very large trees retaining through management practice. But an important knowledge-gap is an ecological role of these retaining legacy trees as potential ecological traps for nesting birds in the context of nest-predation, which can be an important constraint of bird nesting success. It should be a topic of future research to better understand to importance of native vegetation features for bird diversity.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2021v/3.2/s14.26

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