Variation in Temperature, Precipitation, and Vegetation Greenness Drive Changes in Seasonal Variation of Avian Diversity in an Urban Desert Landscape

Fábio Suzart De Albuquerque,Daniel C Allen,Luis Cayuela,Cameron Boehme,Heather L Bateman

doi:10.3390/land10050480

Fábio Suzart De Albuquerque, Daniel C Allen + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/land10050480

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Abstract

Previous studies in urban desert ecosystems have reported a decline in avian diversity. Herein, we expand and improve these studies by disentangling the effect of land-use and land-cover (LULC) types (desert, riparian desert, urban, riparian urban, agriculture), vegetation greenness (normalized difference vegetation index—NDVI), climate, and their interactions on avian seasonal variation abundance and richness. Avian community data were collected seasonally (winter and spring) from 2001 to 2016. We used generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) and multimodel inference to investigate how environmental predictors explain patterns of avian richness and abundance. Avian abundance and richness oscillated considerably among the years. GLMM indicated that LULC was the most important predictor of avian abundance and richness. Avian abundance was highest in urban riparian and urban LULC types, followed by agriculture. In contrast, avian richness was the highest in riparian environments (urban and desert), followed by agriculture, urban, and desert. NDVI was also strongly related to avian abundance and richness, whereas the effect of temperature and precipitation was moderate. The importance of environmental predictors is, however, dependent on LULC. The importance of LULC, vegetation cover, and climate in influencing the seasonal patterns of avian distribution highlights birds’ sensitivity to changes in land use and cover and temperature.

Highlights

This study provides a comprehensive assessment of the effects of different environmental variables on the seasonal pattern of avian abundance and richness across different land-use types
Avian abundance and richness are greatest in the spring compared to winter
Our results demonstrate that land-use and land-cover (LULC) types related to desert riparian, urban riparian, and urban areas with high vegetation cover are essential for avian abundance during spring and winter seasons in this dryland ecosystem

Summary

Introduction

From local to global extents, the spatial-temporal variation of bird diversity and abundance is well studied since the early 1960s [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. These variations have been documented in various environments, from forests and grasslands to deserts [4,7,8]. Migration, climate, and urbanization are often proposed as drivers of the variation of bird abundance and richness [9,10,11,12,13]. These drivers are known to influence the organization of bird communities across seasons [12], especially in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area (USA), an urban desert ecosystem threatened by rapid urban growth and environmental changes [14,15]

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