Environmental and ecological determinants of urban bird community structure

The urban environment has attracted much scientific attention as it stands at the core of environmental changes caused by the growing human population. The responses of bird communities to urbanization have been especially frequently studied. Despite the intensive research, there are several unresolved questions resonating in the field of urban ecology of birds: i) Are cities ordinary components of the original environment with the same macroecological bird diversity patterns as can be observed in the surrounding environment or do they have some specific impacts on native avifaunas? ii) Which traits are characteristic for species being able to persist in cities and for those avoiding urban areas? iii) How does the impact of the most important factors influencing urban bird communities - area, habitat heterogeneity and spatial position - change with spatial scale? Towards answering these questions, data on breeding bird communities were extracted from 41 European urban bird atlases, avifaunas of regions in which cities are embedded were retrieved from the EBCC Atlas of European Breeding Birds. Finer scale bird community data were obtained from the atlas of Prague and by point counts conducted in Prague. Data on bird traits were collated from published resources and additional environmental and..