Avian biotic homogenization driven by airport-affected environments

• DOI: 10.1007/s11252-020-00936-0
• Publication Date: 2020-02-18T04:32:52Z
• Authors: Renata D. Alquezar; Graziela Tolesano...; Diego Gil; Regina H. Macedo
• Keywords: Homogenization; Soundscape; Biotic component; Urban ecology

Building and operating airports are human activities associated with adverse changes in the natural environment, resulting in threats to the biodiversity in airport surroundings. As urban ecosystems are becoming more prevalent in the world and biotic homogenization is a concern, our aim here was to understand how environments near airports (hereafter “airport-affected” sites) were affected, to assess possible changes in bird community structure. We used mist-nets and sound automatic recording units to catalog bird species in natural sites influenced by three Brazilian airports and in three quiet control sites. We characterized study sites by their landscape structure, noise and light levels, and evaluated avian community structure using species richness, abundance and β diversity indexes. Avian communities presented slightly higher species richness in quiet control than in airport-affected sites. Of 22 widespread species, we identified 10 airport adapters responsible for 38.7% of total abundance in airport-affected sites and 17.2% in quiet control sites. We also identified 11 airport avoiders, presenting opposite trends (8.1% and 30.9% respectively). The β diversity results indicate that the regional pool is an important driver in defining species presence within the studied airports. However, taking a wider view, the prevalence of airport adapter species over airport avoider species in the avian communities of airport-affected environments reveals signs of an on-going process of biotic homogenization. Our study provides evidence of the impact of aircrafts and airports on avian communities, a seldom studied anthropogenic change that may affect conservation-worthy areas worldwide.<br/>This work was supported by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico–CNPq), as part of the “Ciências sem Fronteiras” project, type “Visiting Researcher” (406911/2013-4). DG was supported by funds from research grant (CGL2014-55577-R) from the Spanish Ministry of Science to DG. RHM received a fellowship from CNPq for the duration of the study. RDA and GTP were supported by scholarships from both CNPq and CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento Pessoal de Nível Superior).<br/>