Data from: Evaluating the potential for bird-habitat models to support biodiversity-friendly urban planning

Urban expansion poses a major threat to wildlife populations.
Biodiversity-friendly urban landscapes could deliver benefits for both
wildlife and people, by incorporating conservation and ecosystem services
objectives. Well-designed urban developments could also soften the
ecological impacts of urbanisation. However, delivering urban landscapes
that integrate biodiversity requirements effectively remains challenging.
Ecological models, designed to predict wildlife population responses to
alternative urban designs, could prove effective in supporting the
creation of biodiversity-friendly urban landscapes. Here, we combine
national-scale bird abundance data with high resolution, spatially
explicit habitat data to characterise relationships between bird densities
and urban landscape form in Britain. From these analyses and
cross-validation, we evaluate the potential for well-parameterised,
species-specific models to be used to predict bird densities in novel or
modified urban areas. Our analyses indicate that responses of bird
abundance to urban habitat are species-specific and complex, with few
variables consistently affecting a large proportion of species. However,
contiguous areas of greenspace within urban sites are preferential for
accommodating breeding birds, compared to a more fragmented arrangement of
multiple, small greenspace patches. In combination, the bird-habitat
relationships identified could successfully predict observed variation in
abundance for most bird species considered. Further evaluation of habitat
descriptor variables, spatial scales of species’ habitat use and
analytical modelling approaches may be needed to improve the predictive
ability of bird-habitat models for certain species, particularly
waterbirds and those observed less frequently in urban areas. Synthesis
and applications. We modelled breeding bird abundance in built-up areas
with respect to the characteristics and contexts of urban environments.
While most variables were important for multiple species, responses
overall were species-specific, so simple assemblage metrics, like
diversity, will not describe the variation in bird communities well.
However, the results illustrate the potential of an evidence-based,
spatially explicit evaluation of urban development impacts on
biodiversity, by predicting the consequences for bird numbers. Subject to
verification of predictive ability, practitioners can apply the models to
compare, for example, land-sparing and sharing within developments, or to
quantify the biodiversity requirements for effective offsetting. This
would be facilitated by incorporation into an online tool allowing
user-determined input scenarios.