Predicting the impacts of urbanization on riparian bird communities Original Research Article

In 1995, birds were surveyed in riparian woodlands along a gradient of urbanization in the Santa Clara Valley, CA, USA, in order to determine the relationships between riparian bird communities and urbanization. Bird species richness and density decreased at a location as the number of bridges near that location increased and as the volume of native vegetation decreased. Species richness also increased as the distance to the nearest building and the width of the riparian habitat increased. Canonical correspondence analysis confirmed that bird community structure was influenced strongly by these variables. Many individual species responded significantly to variables associated with urbanization, most having lower densities on more urbanized sites. Whereas previous studies have demonstrated substantial effects of urbanization on bird communities in the habitats being directly altered, this study indicates that urbanization on lands adjacent to intact riparian woodlands has substantial impacts on riparian bird communities.