Urban birds prefer native trees - Lund University
Small passerine birds, such as blue and great tits, avoid breeding in urban areas where there are many non-native trees. Chicks also weigh less the more non-native trees there are in the vicinity of the nest. This is shown in a long-term study from Lund University in Sweden.
City trees contribute to several important ecosystem services such as lowering local temperature and purifying air but are also homes to birds and insects. Vegetation, especially trees, is the primary managed biological component of a city’s ecosystem. It is therefore important to understand the consequences of our planning of parks and green spaces. To find out how different types of trees affect birdlife, a research team, led by Lund University, monitored 400 nest boxes in five parks in the Swedish city Malmö over a seven-year period.
The results, now published in the scientific journal, Oecologia, show that native trees – defined in the study as species that have been in the ecosystem for at least 700 years – provide more resources and are preferred by urban birds.
“Non-native trees, also known as introduced, exotic or alien species, lack an evolutionary history with the local ecosystem. We have previously shown that non-native tree species have substantially fewer insects than native trees, so the effect we are now seeing is probably a result of a shortage of food for insectivorous birds, such as the great tit” says Johan Kjellberg Jensen, doctoral student in Urban Ecology at Lund University.
Read the paper: Urban tree composition is associated with breeding success of a passerine bird, but effects vary within and between years
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Posted On: 14/02/2023