Drivers of Seasonal Change of Avian Communities in Urban Parks and Cemeteries of Latin America

Abstract

Urban parks and cemeteries constitute hot spots of bird diversity in urban areas. However, the seasonal dynamics of their bird communities have been scarcely explored at large scales. This study aims to analyze the drivers of urban bird assemblage seasonality in urban parks and cemeteries comparing assemblages during breeding and non-breeding seasons in the Neotropical Region. Since cemeteries have less human disturbance than urban parks, we expected differences in bird community seasonality between habitats. The seasonal change of species composition was partitioned into species turnover and nestedness. At large scales, the seasonal change of species composition was positively related to temperature seasonality and was higher in the Northern Hemisphere. At the landscape scale, the seasonal change of composition decreased in sites located in the most urbanized areas. At the local scale, sites with the highest habitat diversity and pedestrian traffic had the lowest seasonal change of composition. The species turnover was higher in the Northern Hemisphere, augmented with increasing annual temperature range, and decreased in urban parks. The species nestedness was positively related to habitat diversity. Our results showed that a multi-scale framework is essential to understand the seasonal changes of bird communities. Moreover, the two components of seasonal composition dissimilarity showed contrasting responses to environmental variables. Although the surrounding urbanization lowered the seasonal dynamics of urban green areas, cemeteries seem to conserve more seasonal changes than urban parks. Thus, urban cemeteries help to conserve the temporal dynamics of bird communities in cities.