Changing urban bird diversity: how to manage adaptively our closest relation with wildlife

Abstract

We human beings are becoming urban citizens. More and more people spend their lives in urban environments, so that the conservation and improvement of urban biodiversity is an increasingly hot topic. On the one hand, as cities grow bigger and more populated they can become more hostile for some birds, but cities can also be safer than the surrounding rural environment for others. On the other hand, factors affecting negatively or positively wild birds may also influence human’s health, either directly (e.g. pollution) or indirectly (enjoying wildlife diversity could contribute to improve our wellbeing). We review current state of knowledge on factors determining the abundance, diversity and health of urban birds, and derive methods for diagnosing what factors are acting in each particular case. Diagnoses are essential to design effective and efficient ways to manage urban bird diversity and improve it adaptively. We also address whether factors affecting birds could affect citizenship directly, so that urban birds can be used as indicators for healthy urban environments. Investigating and improving urban bird life can also improve human wellbeing through people’s involvement on citizen science programs. Monitoring approaches taken by both authorities and NGOs are still too general and badly designed, but collaboration among scientist, volunteers and authorities will contribute to make them effective. Improving citizen involvement will in turn contribute to improve urban bird diversity, closing a win-win loop for both people and wildlife wellbeing.