Riqueza e diversidade funcional de aves em paisagens urbanas brasileiras: Uma abordagem ambiental, social e econômica

Abstract

Urbanization is one of the anthropic actions that most modifies ecosystems, promoting loss and redistribution of species. These novel urban ecosystems are complex socio-ecological systems influenced by human socioeconomic and cultural factors. However, few studies have tested the effects of urbanization on biodiversity considering socio-economic aspects on a large scale. Here, I tested the effect of the rural-urban contrast in 65 Brazilian cities on bird species richness and functional diversity using citizen science data. I found that cities favor specific functional traits, such as carnivores, saprophagous, granivores and herbivores, and species that forage on the ground and in bodies of water. They also favor partial migratory species. However, they lose forestspecialist species, frugivores and species that feed upon invertebrates. Urban areas have lower taxonomic richness and functional redundancy, indicating low resilience, suggesting they are areas at risk of losing ecosystem services. We found positive effects of environmental variables on difference in redundancy and functional uniqueness and taxonomic richness. Socioeconomic variables were not relevant. Functional uniqueness and functional redundancy had strong relationships with taxonomic richness. Our results can help identify mechanisms that alter bird diversity in urban environments that can be useful to develop programs that increase the environmental quality of cities, maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services in the future.