Abstract
Studies assessing the effect of urbanization on bird community structure largely carried out in developed countries and little is known about the developing region particularly in India. Bird diversity, richness, composition and guild structure was examined at urban, semi-urban, semi-rural and rural-natural sites in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. Each site was sampled using 90 fixed radius point counts between January and June 2016. Semi-urban site was more species rich (2.38 ± 0.06), diverse (0.80 ± .01) and even (0.90 ± .00) than other three urban-rural gradient sites. Density of bird peaked at urban site (43.09 ± 4.7). Numerically, urban site was dominated by omnivore species which was replaced by insectivorous species at semi-natural, semi-rural and rural-natural sites. The current information corroborates the earlier studies assessing impact of urbanization of birds and Conell’s intermediate disturbance hypothesis of higher richness and diversity at intermediate disturbance.
Highlights
Urbanization- the conversion of an undeveloped to metropolis landscape or built up area is sprouting rapidly worldwide
A total 63 species were observed at various rural-urban gradient sites representing 14 orders and 39 families
Urban site supported highest density of birds (43.09 ± 4.7 birds/hectare) while rural-natural site to minimum, with a value of 30.77 ± 2.4 individuals of birds per hectare (Table 2)
Summary
Urbanization- the conversion of an undeveloped to metropolis landscape or built up area is sprouting rapidly worldwide. Sprawling urbanization coupled with resulting fragmentation decreases basic requirements of animals and isolate native species genetically and demographically (Ricketts, 2001). This extirpates native species (Blair, 1996; Chace and Walsh, 2006), alter the behavior of species in human modified areas (Magle and Angelon, 2011) and cause biotic homonization (McKinney, 2006). A combination of these factors in urbanized area significantly influences species abundance, richness, diversity, biomass and composition (Blair, 1996; Blogger et al, 1997; Jokimaki et al, 2002; Chace and Walsh, 2006). Species richness and diversity either decline monotonously with increasing urbanization
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