Abstract
Urbanisation is a major cause of biodiversity loss but careful habitat management and provision of green space within cities can help to mitigate its negative effects. Grasslands occupy large surface areas and have many functions but only a few studies have begun to explore how birds exploit these habitats in urban contexts. We hypothesized that the value of grasslands for nesting and feeding birds is likely to depend both on landscape context, and on local characteristics (grassland size, use and vegetation structure). We surveyed local habitat characteristics, breeding bird presence, abundance and foraging activity in 47 grassland sites, distributed along an urban-rural gradient in two French cities, and varying in the proportions of grassland, built-up land and residential gardens in the neighbouring landscape. Species richness was influenced by local rather than landscape variables; larger sites with scrub within the grassland and taller hedgerow vegetation were more species rich. Total bird abundance, however, depended on landscape context, and increased in suburban grasslands with a higher proportion of gardens in the landscape. Foraging in grass was more frequently observed in shorter, regularly mown, recreational grasslands. These were more common in urban contexts and favoured by species requiring easily accessible and visible invertebrate prey. Less intensively managed wastelands were species rich despite being in urban contexts and favoured by seedeaters and one farmland specialist. A diversity of use and management of grasslands along the urban-rural gradient could allow birds with various requirements to co-exist at landscape scale.
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The research was built upon public material and field data. The data produced can be made available upon request via email to the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Vincent Oury, Cindy Schrader, Frédéric Vaidie and Pascal Bellion for their assistance with fieldwork. This study was funded by the Pays de la Loire Region (URBIO: Biodiversity of Urban Areas) and by the French ministry for the environment via the DIVA 3 programme. Rémi Duflot was supported by a postdoctoral grant from Angers Loire Metropole in France and by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Kone Foundation in Finland.
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This study was funded by: Pays de la Loire Region (France), the French ministry for the environment DIVA 3 Programme, Angers Loire Metropole (France) and Kone Foundation (Finland).
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Véronique Beaujouan, Hervé Daniel, Guillaume Pain and Josephine Pithon contributed to the study conception and design. All authors contributed to data collection and data analysis was led by Rémi Duflot. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Josephine Pithon and all authors commented on subsequent versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Pithon, J.A., Duflot, R., Beaujouan, V. et al. Grasslands provide diverse opportunities for bird species along an urban-rural gradient. Urban Ecosyst 24, 1281–1294 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-021-01114-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-021-01114-6