Street trees reduce the negative effects of urbanization on birds

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0174484
• Publication Date: 2017-03-24T02:08:32Z
• Authors: João Carlos de Ca...; Felipe Martello; Milton Cezar Ribeiro; Richard A. Armitage; Robert J. Young; Marcos Rodrigues
• Keywords: Arboreal locomotion; Urban ecology; Urban forest

The effects of streets on biodiversity is an important aspect urban ecology, but it has been neglected worldwide. Several vegetation attributes (e.g. street tree density and diversity) have ecological processes. In this study, we evaluated the influences vegetation-represented by characteristics trees (canopy size, proportion native species richness)-and landscape (distance to parks quantity), human impacts (human population size exposure noise) taxonomic data functional diversity indices bird community inhabiting streets. study area was southern region Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais, Brazil), a largely urbanized city in understudied Neotropical region. Bird were collected 60 point count locations distributed across landscape. We used series competing GLM models (using Akaike's information criterion for small sample sizes) assess relative contribution different sets variables explain observed patterns. Seventy-three exploiting streets: most abundant frequent throughout community's richness Rao's Quadratic Entropy presented values lower than 0.5. Therefore, favoring few traits. Exposure noise limiting factor community. However, average arboreal patches and, especially trees, able reduce negative These results show importance adequately planning afforestation process: increasing richness, preserving large planting more are management practices that will increase abundance aspects consequently improve wellbeing quality life.