Are cities different? Patterns of species richness and beta diversity of urban bird communities and regional species assemblages in Europe

Abstract

The species-area relationship and latitudinal trends are largely congruent between cities and the regional assemblages. However, city avifaunas tend to be relatively more uniform across space, revealing biotic homogenization.

Urban communities in northern cities are more uniform as a higher proportion of bird species breeds in cities.

Keywords

• Beta diversity
• birds
• distance decay of similarity
• European cities
• homogenization
• latitudinal gradient of species richness
• species–area relationship
• urbanization
• variance partitioning