Investigating temporal and spatial correlates of the sharp decline of an urban exploiter bird in a large European city
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Investigating temporal and spatial correlates of the sharp decline of an urban exploiter bird in a large European city Bertille Mohring 1,2
&
Pierre-Yves Henry 3,4 & Frédéric Jiguet 3 & Frédéric Malher 5 & Frédéric Angelier 1
# The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Increasing urbanisation and human pressure on lands have huge impacts on biodiversity. Some species, known as “urban exploiters”, manage to expand in urban landscapes, relying on human resources. The House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) is the perfect example of a human-commensal species. Surprisingly, this urban exploiter has been declining all over Europe over the past decades. The proximate causes of this decline remain poorly understood. We particularly lack understanding about urban habitat characteristics that are particularly unfavourable for House Sparrows. In the present study, we analysed fine-scale habitat characteristics of House Sparrow population sizes and trends using a fifteen-year House Sparrow census (2003–2017) covering the urban diversity of Paris (nearly 200 census sites), one of the densest European cities. We documented for the first time the dramatic decline (−89%) of the species in Paris over the study period. The temporal decline over the whole city correlates with the concomitant increase in the number of breeding Sparrowhawks. We could not detect statistical influences of annual variations in weather conditions and pollution. The decline of House Sparrows is spatially heterogeneous. Indeed, site-scale analyses revealed sharpest declines at sites that initially hosted the largest numbers of sparrows, which are areas with a relatively high proportion of green spaces and new buildings. Further experimental studies are now needed to disentangle the exact impact of specific characteristics of the urban environment on House Sparrow populations. Keywords Birds . Landscape ecology . Passer domesticus . Long-term population monitoring . Fine-scale habitat study . Urbanisation
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-020-01052-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Bertille Mohring [email protected] 1
Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Villiers-en-Bois, F-79360 Beauvoir sur Niort, France
2
Environmental and Marine Biology, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Åbo Akademi University, Tykistökatu 6, FI-20520 Turku, Finland
3
Centre d’Ecologie et des Sciences de la Conservation (UMR 7204 CESCO), Muséum National d’Histoire naturelle, Sorbonne Université, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CP 135, 57 rue Cuvier, 75005 Paris, France
4
Mécanismes adaptatifs et Evolution (UMR 7179 MECADEV), Muséum National d’Histoire naturelle, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1 avenue du Petit Château, 91800 Brunoy, France
5
LPO Ile-de-France, Parc Montsouris, 26 Bd Jourdan, 75014 Paris, France
Introduction With the growth of the world human population and the increase in human pressu
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