Avian Assemblages at Bird Baths: A Comparison of Urban and Rural Bird Baths in Australia
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Author(s)
Cleary, Grainne P
Parsons, Holly
Davis, Adrian
Coleman, Bill R
Jones, Darryl N
Miller, Kelly K
Weston, Michael A
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2016
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Show full item recordAbstract
Private gardens provide habitat and resources for many birds living in human-dominated
landscapes. While wild bird feeding is recognised as one of the most popular forms of
human-wildlife interaction, almost nothing is known about the use of bird baths. This citizen
science initiative explores avian assemblages at bird baths in private gardens in south-eastern
Australia and how this differs with respect to levels of urbanisation and bioregion. Overall,
992 citizen scientists collected data over two, four-week survey periods during winter
2014 and summer 2015 (43% participated in both years). Avian assemblages at urban and
rural ...
View more >Private gardens provide habitat and resources for many birds living in human-dominated landscapes. While wild bird feeding is recognised as one of the most popular forms of human-wildlife interaction, almost nothing is known about the use of bird baths. This citizen science initiative explores avian assemblages at bird baths in private gardens in south-eastern Australia and how this differs with respect to levels of urbanisation and bioregion. Overall, 992 citizen scientists collected data over two, four-week survey periods during winter 2014 and summer 2015 (43% participated in both years). Avian assemblages at urban and rural bird baths differed between bioregions with aggressive nectar-eating species influenced the avian assemblages visiting urban bird baths in South Eastern Queensland, NSW North Coast and Sydney Basin while introduced birds contributed to differences in South Western Slopes, Southern Volcanic Plains and Victorian Midlands. Small honeyeaters and other small native birds occurred less often at urban bird baths compared to rural bird baths. Our results suggest that differences between urban versus rural areas, as well as bioregion, significantly influence the composition of avian assemblages visiting bird baths in private gardens. We also demonstrate that citizen science monitoring of fixed survey sites such as bird baths is a useful tool in understanding large-scale patterns in avian assemblages which requires a vast amount of data to be collected across broad areas.
View less >
View more >Private gardens provide habitat and resources for many birds living in human-dominated landscapes. While wild bird feeding is recognised as one of the most popular forms of human-wildlife interaction, almost nothing is known about the use of bird baths. This citizen science initiative explores avian assemblages at bird baths in private gardens in south-eastern Australia and how this differs with respect to levels of urbanisation and bioregion. Overall, 992 citizen scientists collected data over two, four-week survey periods during winter 2014 and summer 2015 (43% participated in both years). Avian assemblages at urban and rural bird baths differed between bioregions with aggressive nectar-eating species influenced the avian assemblages visiting urban bird baths in South Eastern Queensland, NSW North Coast and Sydney Basin while introduced birds contributed to differences in South Western Slopes, Southern Volcanic Plains and Victorian Midlands. Small honeyeaters and other small native birds occurred less often at urban bird baths compared to rural bird baths. Our results suggest that differences between urban versus rural areas, as well as bioregion, significantly influence the composition of avian assemblages visiting bird baths in private gardens. We also demonstrate that citizen science monitoring of fixed survey sites such as bird baths is a useful tool in understanding large-scale patterns in avian assemblages which requires a vast amount of data to be collected across broad areas.
View less >
Journal Title
PLoS One
Volume
11
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© 2016 Cleary et al. This is an open
access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original author and source are
credited.
Subject
Environmental management