The Influence of landscape parameters, human disturbance and vegetation structure on urban park avifauna in Isfahan, Iran

As urbanization accelerates, wildlife community structure affects dramatically. Parks are diversity hotspots in cities and can be considered as islands in urban landscapes. Determining the environmental parameters influencing avian community structure is one the hot issues in avifauna conservation. We assessed the influence of park attributes, human disturbance, and vegetation structure on avian community structure of 25 urban parks in Isfahan, a highly populated city in central Iran. Bird census was conducted in replicated strip transects. Landscape and vegetation structure parameters, and disturbances were related to bird species richness and diversity quantified within the strip transects. In total, 24 bird species and 5,579 individual birds were observed during censuses. Based on Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling, bird distribution pattern were strongly correlated with park area, amount of edge, woody species richness, area of green space and pavement. In contrast to other studies, total bird diversity and density increased with visitor rate. About 67% of recorded birds were classified in Passerine order. As the two most abundant species (HHD domesticus and Carrion Crow Corvus corone) were urban adapters, therefore increasing species richness and density with increasing in park visitors can be result of supplementary food brought along by people. These findings could be considered in planning the city parks for long-term sustainability of urban avian diversity.

Keywords:

Bird community , Disturbance , Ecological guilds , Landscape parameters , Urbanization , Urban parks