Predicting spatial patterns of bird richness in an urban landscape in Himalayan foothills, India
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Predicting spatial patterns of bird richness in an urban landscape in Himalayan foothills, India Aimon Bushra 1
&
Hitendra Padalia 1 & Afifullah Khan 2
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Increasing pace of urbanization is the leading cause of decline in natural areas and associated biodiversity in developing countries. Bird richness is considered as a key indicator of urban environment quality. We investigated the relationship between satellite image derived landscape variables and field surveyed bird counts to predict bird richness in a rapidly urbanizing city in Western Himalayan foothills of India. Predictor variables derived from remotely sensed data comprised of vegetation productivity, landscape metrics and topography. We found that bird richness in this low density residential urban environment was positively related to greenness, elevation, and the degree of contrast between neighbourhood patches, while it was negatively related to patch densities. The Generalized Linear Model (GLM) with lowest Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) explained about 90% variability in bird richness distribution. Results indicated high bird species richness in elevated remnant vegetation patches and green spaces compared to low lying “core” settlement areas. The study urges to consider conservation and protection of green cover spaces in urban areas through effective landscape and urban planning. Keywords Avian richness . Environmental indicators . Landscape indices . Remote sensing . Generalized linear model
Introduction Worldwide more people live in urban areas than in rural, with 54% of the world’s population residing in urban areas in 2014 (United Nations 2014). Urban sprawl, in terms of household numbers occurs even faster in developing nations due to the improving socioeconomic conditions (Liu et al. 2003). Of the three leading causes of species endangerment (urbanization,
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-020-01044-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Aimon Bushra [email protected] Hitendra Padalia [email protected] Afifullah Khan [email protected] 1
Forestry and Ecology Department, Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (Indian Space Research Organisation), 4-Kalidas Road, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248001, India
2
Department of Wildlife Sciences, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh 202002, India
agriculture, and interactions with non-native species), urbanization ranks the highest (Czech et al. 2000). While it has been long reasoned that urban areas need conservation priorities (Pudyatmoko et al. 2009; Müller et al. 2013; Ibáñez-Álamo et al. 2016), conservation programs in urban areas are among the most challenging issues faced by environmentalists (Murphy 1988). Urban green spaces such as urban parks, wooded streets, and cemeteries represent the last remnants of green cover, providing potential habitats for birds and invertebrates like butterflies and severa
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