Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
4381439 | Acta Oecologica | 2009 | 6 Pages |
Abstract
Urbanisation is affecting ecological communities worldwide. Despite the disproportionate impact on farmland over other habitats, the effect on farmland bird communities has been poorly studied. Considering the still-alarming conservation status of farmland birds, investigations into the effects of pressures such as urbanisation on those communities could be of great interest for their conservation. We studied the urbanisation effects on functional diversity using existing indices designed for the purpose of standardisation. This study uses a functional character measuring species habitat specialisation for indices calculation. A bird survey was conducted on 92 plots of 1Â ÃÂ 1Â km chosen after stratification on the proportion of urban area and farmland habitat (either 0, 25, 50, 75%), with the focus on farmland habitat. Two aspects of urbanisation were studied: the intensity and the age of the urbanisation. Functional richness was found to decrease with urbanisation, while functional evenness and divergence increased in a nonlinear way. No significant difference was observed in functional richness and evenness with urbanisation age, however extreme ages of urbanisation (young and old) showed higher niche differentiation concerning specialisation. This implies less important resource competition for species and a more vulnerable state for the ecosystem. Using functional diversity indices based on specialisation allows a better insight in the consequences of urbanisation on diversity/ecosystem-community functioning, which is of crucial importance in the face of global changes.
Related Topics
Life Sciences
Agricultural and Biological Sciences
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Authors
Ondine Filippi-Codaccioni, Jean Clobert, Romain Julliard,