Abstract
The city is one of the most specific ecosystems of the modern biosphere. The combination of natural and artificial components and elements of the city have made it a complex system of ecotopes with various levels of anthropogenic transformation. Still the structure of urban ecosystems includes some patches of undisturbed or minimally disturbed landscapes, which may be considered the home for the most abundant part of urban biocenosis – the urban avifauna. Therefore, in this research the concept and features of urban zoocenosis in specific application to avifauna of the Kyiv urban system have been considered. A modern city if found to offer a range of benefits for birds, including food, shelter, and higher temperatures over the year and lower predator pressure and competition. However, the level of food quality as well as the condition of environment components are low and impose real health threats. Physical pollution, in particular noise and electro-magnetic impacts are also serious disturbing factors. Considering these factors, the ecotopes most suitable for birds have been defined among the parks, forests, lakes and cemeteries of the city – total 59 objects. In order to assess their comfort for birds, the specific ranking scale has been developed. The parameters taken into consideration in the course of assessment are as follows: general spatial characteristics (size and fragmentation of the territory), vegetation quality (covered territory, height and age of trees), forage availability and diversity, hydrographic situation (access to water bodies), environment quality (level of water and air pollution, noise pollution, non-organic wastes directly at the site), human pressure (density of people moving, area with artificial covers, level of anthropization), bird supporting elements and activity, and also predation pressure. According to the obtained result the forests around and its residuals inside Kyiv are the least transformed and consequently the most comfortable for the support of birds diversity. They are followed by cultivated semi-natural areas, which comfort declines as the levels of recreational pressure, human presence and proximity to the city center increases. Finally, the last in the list are small parks or cemeteries, cut off from water bodies or water bodies lacking dense vegetation. An important issue, showed by personal visual observations, is that the activity of humans aimed at support of birds communities within area of any status is proved to be more important as compared to obvious disadvantages seen at certain areas.
Highlights
Around the world most of urban ecosystems express a common trend in their species diversity, which is basically another element of globalization: as urban settlements generally have similar structures and manifest similar features, the wildlife presence becomes similar
Certain studies performed on urban avifauna proved the tendency of city birds having bigger brain size, perhaps allowing them to be more adaptable to the changeable urban environment (Møller & Erritzøe, 2015)
As our work concentrates on specific fauna component of urban systems and its place in it, this drives us to determination of the basic units, in other words the smallest ecotopes, suitable for further analysis
Summary
Around the world most of urban ecosystems express a common trend in their species diversity, which is basically another element of globalization: as urban settlements generally have similar structures and manifest similar features, the wildlife presence becomes similar. Those are the species that are more adapted and tolerable to changes imposed by cities upon their natural habitats. The synanthropic species live in close interrelations or even direct dependence on the urban mode of life, as well as the invasive alien species, introduced to cities everywhere and are becoming more and more inseparable from those systems. That can be a modern manifestation of evolutionary selection of the "fittest", altered and directed by humanity and its development
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